Uprising of the Condemned
by Foster-the-Wizards
Summary: Come, and read a tale of adventure and intrigue, of cunning plots and magical duels, of sides switched, battles won, and bloody vengeance.
1. The Beginning of the End

The Beginning of the End

A sickly breeze wafted its way through Diagon Alley, accented with the acrid traces of dark magic, and leaving a bitter copper taste drifting on the wind. White masks littered the ground as blackened bloodstains dried on the steps of Gringotts Bank.

The majestic age-old white marble columns with rich green and gold veins, the center of wizarding London's economic majesty, was only standing by the grace of ancestral magic. Any other structure wrought with the devastation suffered under the final onslaught of the Dark Lord's forces would have collapsed in a cascade of mortar, stone, and failing enchantments.

Flashes of antique light bulbs lit up the emerging shadows from an encroaching dusk as hordes of intrigued witches and wizards streamed through the cozy interior of the Leaky Cauldron to gaze upon the destruction of Diagon. Broken glass and rubble littered the alley, and dark magic reside scorched many storefronts. A few ambitious shopkeepers were attempting to clean up, but those who'd survived the initial onslaught were gathering around the bank.

The wizarding wireless had broadcast an emergency message through every station, calmly stating a broadcast of national importance would be occurring shortly, based from the steps of Gringotts Bank in Diagon Alley. The press had apparated at warp speed once the information reached their ears, and wizards living in the surrounding London area were curious enough to swarm in too.

Minister Scrimgeour was nowhere to be seen, but one of his lackeys, Undersecretary Matthews, strode purposefully through the doors of Gringott's wizarding bank at exactly seven-thirty pm. His expensive purple robes billowed out behind him, held together with a golden clasp signifying his station of authority, his purposeful strides demanding respect and attentive ears. The crowd gathering at the footsteps of Gringotts pushed forward as photographers jostled for the perfect position to give them a shot at the cover, and eternal fame.

A quiet Sonorous was issued, and the Ministry of Magic began to speak.

– – – – –

The sunlight glistened off the crashing waves of Palombaggia Beach, near Porto-Vecchio, on Corsica Island, a beautiful Mediterranean day that wasn't spent wasting away in school. Thomas Duncan was eleven, and right now the most important thing in the world was holding his breath.

He opened his eyes under-water and found his twin brother staring straight back, eyebrows raised and mocking his need for air. Both boys were resolute in the determination, lungs screaming for oxygen, but neither would give up. Half a minute into the contest, both boys broke the surface of the water, fingers pointing at the other.

"You were up first!"

"Me! You were first!

"You're blind! I'm going to tell mom!

"No you're not! Get back here! Joey!"

Laughter from both of the boys dunking each other was heard from the beach where Mr. and Mrs. Duncan were reclining on the sand dunes bordering the water. Both smiled at their kids and turned to look at each other, missing what happened next. Thomas was dunked for the third time in a row chasing his brother, and he'd had enough.

The water turned to solid steps beneath his feet as he climbed out of it, sprinting for ten meters on top of the waves, passing his brother and running entirely out of the ocean and onto the beach. He whooped with excitement before spinning around triumphantly. Taking in the gob smacked expression of his brother, Thomas pumped his fist into the air, victorious.

"No way! You can walk on water?" asked Joey as he first swam over, then climbed out of the ocean once he found his feet. He playfully punched his brother in the shoulder.

"I walked on water! Hahaha, I'm like Jesus!" exclaimed Thomas, before galloping back into the water and trying unsuccessfully to repeat the feat, failing spectacularly.

"Don't let mom catch you saying that," said Joey, as he joined his brother again in the ocean. "I don't think normal Catholic's can do what we can." After five minutes, he was bored of his brother's antics. "Let's get some more suntan lotion on, I'm burning."

None of the vacationers on the beach saw a speck emerge on the horizon.

Very quickly it grew larger as it neared shore, and eventually became two jet-black owls, each carrying a black letter with a sickly green tinge tied to its leg. The owls descended the ocean air currents, and dove steeply towards the beach once they saw their intended addressees.

Mrs. Duncan was calmly dressing down her twin boys about not using enough sunscreen and the dangers of sunburn when two owls landed abruptly next to the boys, shooting up puffs of sand. Two letters were attached to the owl's legs, black just like the owls with a green glow surrounding the edges and creases of the envelope. Before she had a chance to voice her doubts, her twins' eyes clouded over, and both immediately reached for the letters.

The birds vanished in a puff of magic when their hands first touched the parchment, and the letters animated into the shapes of two hideous skulls. Mr. Duncan reached out for Thomas as Mrs. Duncan did likewise to Joey, an immediate primitive fear spiking within the depths of their poor muggle hearts.

They were much too late. Each parchment skull spit out a black stone engraved with a green and silver _S_, and hissed three words in a language no one present could possibly understand.

A thunderous explosion rocked the beach, throwing sand up fifty meters. The immense heat transformed the sand from pearly white to black as night, glowing glass pulsating with ember like heat. Black smoke shot into the sky, embezzled with green and silver lightning, and the Dark Mark arose from above what was left of the Duncan's paradise.

Screams rang through the air as most vacationers ran from the horrendous blast, attempting to put as much space between themselves and danger. A courageous few ran straight towards the destruction however, and were astonished at what they saw upon nearing the devastation. Thomas and Joey Duncan were naked as the day they were born and crying soul-searing cries, lifting their voices together in pure emotional and magical agony.

A vacationing wizard on holiday from Venice was touring the famed shops of Porto-Vecchio when he heard the thunderous explosion, and apparated directly onto the dunes.

Upon taking in the destruction and Voldemort's Dark Mark, he sprinted towards the blackened sand, his cloak streaming behind him and wand outstretched, ignoring the secrecy act as it had already been appallingly breached.

Without pausing to wonder how two mere boys had survived Voldemort's wrath, he stunned them immediately, levitating their bodies out from the scorched earth and right to his side. Grabbing onto their arms with both hands, and ignoring the cries of astonishment from the gathering crowd, he side-along-apparated away.

– – – – –

Five miles underneath Gringotts, a giant cavern long forgotten to lore lay glittering with hundreds of newly cast _Lumos Maximus'_. Unspeakables scurried back and forth like ants, bursts of magic emerging from their wands with passion not normally seen from their pensive profession.

A giant lake in the middle of the cavern bubbled with furious anger, frothing pure molten gold bubbles that burst and occasionally sprayed past the lake's basin-like confines. Pure gold rivulets emerged where the spray landed, gently crawling into veins that redirected the vast wealth back into the lake. In between the rivers of gold were stones of runes carved into one another with precision, a puzzle of intricate Goblin magic.

Magic from each rune rose up, forming distortions in the air and sparks the colors of the rainbow. The Goblin's themselves stood guard, circling the entire cavern, ominously silent as witches and wizards scurried back and forth like ants marching.

Ancient texts locked away in the pureblood mansions of wizarding aristocracy mention the reason wizardkind became beholden to the Goblins, to such an extent that their entire fortunes would be managed by an inferior species.

What was lost to time, and whose rediscovery led to three of the vicious Goblin rebellions, was the location of the rumored Spring of Feliciana, alleged to be a brilliant witch of Macedonia. She was the enchantress responsible for creating the monetary resources enabling Alexander the Great to conquer most of the civilized world, and her infamy was locked away in seldom-read tombs.

It was even rumored that a young, ambitious Nicolas Flamel had used all his reputable wit, charm, and intelligence to reach an accord with the Goblins to study the Spring. Divining the enchantments on the Spring of Feliciana had supposedly led to a breakthrough in his creation of the Philosopher's Stone.

An emergency medical bay, hastily erected on one side of the golden lake and missing only a few of St. Mungo's accessories, was stock full with witches and wizards. They were lying in makeshift beds, heavily restrained under a combination of multiple healing potions and the _silencio_'s of severely stressed nurses.

Healers were scurrying from tent to tent, furiously casting sterilizing charms, banishing bloody bandages, and portkeying stabilized wizards to the proper St. Mungos facilities. The dead bodies had recently been portkeyed to St. Mungo's morgue, but the bloodstains they'd left behind on the runic floor added a forbidding element to a scene of immense victory.

Minister Scrimgeour stood flanked by the Head of the Unspeakables and DMLE, deep in discussion, their eyes swiftly moving from face to face, only glancing momentarily at the Well, and the dangerous goblins surrounding him.

"Rufus, the Potter boy just simply cannot be allowed back into our world. I say Obliviate him and drop him off in some Muggle street halfway across the world. Just stop and think, none of them…"

"Don't tell me I'm not thinking Vernachi. Don't tell me I don't have a handle on this situation," said Scrimgeour, irritatingly combing his hand through his dirty light brown hair. "Harry Potter is the hero of the wizarding world. Half of his friends are dead, the others barely alive, clinging to life in those medical tents. I can't very well kill the men and women who just defeated Voldemort and freed our country from a thirty-year reign of terror, now can I? Surely you don't think me so... ruthless?"

"I'm sorry sir, I wasn't suggesting…"

"Yes you were," said Scrimgeour pointedly.

"You're right, however," conceded Rufus, sighing with confusion. "Harry Potter's political clout will far outstrip mine if he leaves here today."

The three men stood silently, their minds scheming with every second that passed, wondering at the last twenty-four hours. If they'd been told that the war would be ending today, none would have believed. Only forty minutes had passed since Harry Potter had sent a Patronus to the Minister's house, detailing apparation points for their current position miles underground, and stating that Voldemort was dead by his hand. The Ministry was in an uproar, and these three men were the heads of the beast.

The DMLE head, Thaddeus McMullen, suddenly stiffened and his eyes turned a frosty blue. After a moment of introspection, he glanced up with a twinkle in his eye, having just received a legilimessage.

"Sir, if I may?" Rufus nodded his head in consent, folding his arms across his chest. "I just received a MFA from one of our Aurors at the DMLE South London. Apparently there's sixty some-odd dark marks floating above Muggle houses, from London all the way to Liverpool."

"Any Death Eaters?" asked Rufus, abruptly losing his calm but troubled demeanor and replacing it with a calculated look long known from his Auror days.

"No sir, nothing reported. Most of the Death Eaters we had intelligence on are either dead, or in the medical tents right over there, giving us names of the rest of them."

"Then what the devil are the Marks for?"

"Forgive me the lack of details, sir. Another message should be arriving shortly."

A minute of contemplative silence passed before McMullen's eyes turned frosty blue yet again. "We have squads four, nine, and fifteen apparating to each Mark. So far they've found body parts of children. Cross referencing with the Hogwarts roll, every family Muggle, every child dead with magical ability. Some sort of massive exploding enchantment, sir."

Scrimgeour's dumbfounded expression greeted his words, and he squatted down onto his heels, holding his head between his hands and rubbing his temples. "Thaddeus, you're saying Voldemort identified and murdered every English Muggleborn?" McMullen's face was devoid of emotion as he nodded in affirmation.

"First, mobilize the entire Obliviator force, if they're not already. And next, by Merlin, explain how exactly this is supposed to help me deal with Harry Potter."

– – – – –

Harry Potter did not look his age.

The scars covering his entire body were such a set that Healer Smith had cried as she untiringly cast diagnostic spells and checked her potions chart, cross-checking the progress of the multiple potions the savior of the wizarding world was imbued with. Four of the potions in his body opposed the workings of one another, and each was imperative to Harry Potter's health

Not many Muggleborn made their way into the healing ranks of St. Mungos, and Elizabeth doubted she'd be here without her groundbreaking work combining potions with programmable bacterium.

She was attempting to persuade her modified _Cruciatus_serum to attach itself to Harry Potter's major arterial walls, instead of clustering within his bloodstream, where it was battling the combination of a complex dark magic absorbent and a heavy duty muscle-relaxant.

His body was no longer suffering jolts and tremors, though the ghastly black tinge to the cuts etched into his chest were proving troublesome.

Complicating matters was the residue of dark magic flowing through Harry Potter's entire body, pulsing with evil and wrongness. Throughout the healing, Harry had declined the Dreamless Sleep potion, and was staring at her intently with the most beautiful green eyes she'd ever seen. She was hardly one for gossip, but his gorgeous eyes had stared out to hers from the pages of _London's Bachelor Elite_, and in person they were even more captivating.

Just half an hour past she'd been managing a new group of interns at St. Mungos, walking through the 4th floor of Spell Damage when an Auror clothed in red burst from a magical lift, running directly towards her. He'd thrust a hastily made portkey into her hands, and declared it would activate in ten seconds, Minister's orders. While she pondered what could warrant the attention of the Minister himself, the portkey activated, tugging behind her navel and leaving her gaping trainees stranded behind.

She'd arrived in the most amazingly magical place she'd ever seen. It was also a scene of immense destruction, with bodies lying haphazardly on a bloodstained floor, Death Eaters and other dragonhide clothed wizards. Some motionless, others in varying states of disrepair.

A Ministry Field Hospital was in its final stages of setup, and she saw healers rushing about, some with levitating patients in tow.

Her bones quaked a little upon seeing a full brigade of warrior caste Goblins surrounding them, but with Minister Scrimgeour striding forward, and some of the highest ranked healers St. Mungos had appearing around her, she stamped down on her fear.

"We cannot move some of the survivors, travel would kill them outright. We need you, saving lives, ten minutes ago!" yelled Scrimgeour.

Elizabeth was felt herself pulled aside by Madame Diamante Bonham, Head Healer of St. Mungos.

"You will be personally attending to the injuries of Harry Potter. Save his life!"

She hadn't believed until his deathly pale body had been laid on her operating table.

Harry hissed in pain when she reset some of his broken ribs.

"Alright there, Mr. Potter?"

"Call me Harry." Elizabeth grinned, and nodded.

"Elizabeth. I'm working on removing the dark magic impressions within your wounds. And yours are especially nasty, Harry."

Harry shifted slightly, and met her eyes. "Am I dying?"

"Goodness no!" she exclaimed. "Not on my watch, Harry. You have a long road to recovery, but the worst is over. Another few minutes and we'll be past the worst."

"Is.. is Voldemort dead?" she asked tentatively.

Harry gazed at her with what can only be described as a heavy stare, his eyes boring into her soul.

"He's dead. I just want a normal life now." Elizabeth thought it highly unlikely the wizarding world would leave their two-time savior live in peace, but kept that comment to herself.

"What's normal?" she asked, hoping to hear about his plans for the future.

"Dark Lords, dueling, death. So much death..." Harry attempted to shrug his shoulders, but couldn't perform the movement due to restraints on his arms. "That's my life, whether I like it or not. Can't change the past," he said regrettably.

"With Voldemort's gone, and no prophecy hanging over my head… I guess… I don't know. I can't remember a time that I've ever been outside of Hogwarts and London. I think I'd like to go to a place where no one knows my name." Harry smiled, relaxing in the glow of his thoughts.

Moments later he took on a determined air and his eyes hardened, as if he'd taken on a burden. "But I made a promise to one of my best friends and the smartest witch I knew in England. She was probably the only person who truly understood what it meant to be me, and that means I;ve got work to do."

"Ginny Weasley?" she asked, unsure about how to answer. It was well known that throughout the last two years, many associated with the Boy-Who-Lived had been ruthlessly killed.

"No, I'm talking about Hermione Granger. I held her dying in my arms, her blood spilling over my body, and she asked me to change the world." Elizabeth shook her head and moved to counter his statement.

"You already did Harry! Twice you've defeated him…"

"…Voldemort? That was… all that was, was destiny. You can't understand the horrors I've gone through to get right here, what this day means to me. That wasn't me. I used to think this would mean freedom..." Harry's breath hitched in pain, his eyes scrunching up, and his arms strained against the restraints which held him down, his body trembling with the first set of spasms since he'd opened his eyes and they'd begun talking. The tremors resided, and instead of retreating further, Harry seemed to shine with newfound energy. "Are you Muggleborn?"

"Yes I am." said Elizabeth, guardedly. As Harry began speaking, she ran another diagnostics test and began concluding the final healing process on his most serious wounds.

"Then you know that this world can't last. In all my Hogwarts years, and Wizengamot sessions, I've seen no representation for the Muggleborn. They're either in a meaningless ass-backwards job or they retreat back to the muggle world. The muggles evolved beyond the class system and discrimination that's rampant here, the wizarding world hasn't; mudbloods aren't supposed to climb the social ladder."

"The arcane knowledge of magic is held by the purebloods, jealously hoarded. What we learn in school barely scratches the surface of knowledge such as Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle possessed. Even with Voldemort killing off numerous purebloods that opposed him, the entire Wizengamot is still entirely pureblooded."

"And don't think for a second that this world will change just because Voldemort is gone. No, wizardkind will celebrate me as a hero, and after their celebration parties have run their course, I'll still be left with a magical society that never deserved salvation."

"I knew less magic than all the confused Muggleborn looking lost on Platform 9 3/4. I remember meeting Hermione Granger for the first time on the train; her desire to prove herself and her enthusiasm was like nothing I'd ever seen. She'd memorized most of the entire first years curriculum just to be prepared for this wonderful journey of magic, something every muggle has wished for at some time in our lives, just a single chance to make everything better with a flick of a wand and a few words. And all it took was one day at Hogwarts for her to realize that she was completely alone, a filthy little mudblood, gifted with these amazing powers, and yet relegated to the bottom of a pre-existing magical hierarchy that couldn't give a fuck about her." Harry trailed off, and she moved to wipe salty tears away that had suddenly blossomed on the face of the Boy-Who-Lived. It was a gentle caress, but Harry flinched from her tender movements.

"Do you know what Hermione asked me, with her last breath? She asked me to fight for equality. To ensure that magic, and all the joy that comes with it, wasn't stolen from a witch or wizard because of their blood status. Her entire life was based around confronting the prejudice of this society, being reviled for her heritage even while standing up to Lord Voldemort, fighting while all of those proud purebloods strutted about afraid to say his name."

He rose with so many followers in both wars because his views are shared by the majority of this countrys governing body. And the only way that I can see to honor Hermione is establishing a new magical society. It's funny, because that's exactly what Voldemort was attempting to do. I think it requires a Revolution. I guess, in a fucked up way, we're more alike that I ever imagined."

Silence filled the small medical tent as Elizabeth continued cleaning his wounds, fighting the dark curses attacking Harry Potter's body. She was making progress on the physical wounds of his body, but as for his emotional scars,drugs could only do so much. She knew the emotional burdens Harry was shouldering caused far more agony than his physical wounds combined, and she was useless to combat those traumas. That helplessness redoubled her efforts after Harry Potter lapsed into a calm, peaceful silence, her wand motions, muttered spells, and potions the only comfort she could give the Boy-Who-Lived.

– – – – –

Foster the Wizards


	2. Corruption

Corruption

Augustus Medichi was a wizard of some considerable social standing in the city of Venice. His family was ancient, and their place in the city's hierarchy dated back to the Italian Renaissance; his large manor house was filled with frescoes and sculptures of such magical artists as Donatello and Botacelli, and magical ever-blooming rose-gardens dotted the surrounding lands. He was especially pleased with his acquisition of the many precious panels depicting Colore Cangiante, a shifting of colors originally mastered by Michelangelo while working on the Sistine Chapel. It was one of his direct ancestors, deep in discussion with the famed artist, who had initially suggested the Florentine form revival, and Michelangelo had sculpted the Medichi family a beautiful bath chamber as a result of the well-taken suggestion. It was this bath chamber that Augustus had retired to, soaking the day's sweat off his body, and lending warmth to his magically drained muscles.

Side-along apparation with two unconscious boys, and him unable to tap into their magical cores had put quite the strain on his oldtimer bones, and listening to the gently cascading waterfalls placed around his chamber soothed mind, body, and spirit. Augustus' wife was currently pressing legislation through the Italian Ministry of Magic, and his two sons were off in the Alps, chasing a crew of deviant wizards responsible for stealing one of their Caravaggio's.

A quick smile about how lucky he was to have such a beautiful family quickly turned to a frown as he pondered the fates of the two boys he'd picked up on the Island of Corsica. As the Head of the Medichi family, he knew adoption was completely out of the question, as any blood not of him wouldn't be accepted into the wards surrounding his family's opulent dwellings. The Medichi Family never adopted; instead they picked their betrothed for magical power and beauty, and had thus remained stronger than any of the Older Families in all of Northern Italy. At times like these, however, Augustus thoroughly wished he had a daughter, as he would betroth her in a second to one of the two boys. He had heard vaguely of Voldemort, and was uniquely aware of the Dark Mark, as it had been spotted over the Pisarro Family, known friends of the muggleborn, last new years eve. What he comprehended, and wished his family could somehow capitalize on, was that it took an otherworldly magical core to deflect the wrath of England's Dark Lord.

With a long sigh, Augustus sank into the bubble bath he'd drawn, and banished his troubled thoughts, instead concentrating on sending images of lovemaking to his wife. He chuckled at her response, an angry retort to not distract her, with an added promise of an entire night of lovemaking if he'd leave her alone. Augustus sank into the luscious bubbles with a sigh, barely peeking an eye open to glance at the two boys he'd apparated with. Both were out cold in the corner of the room under stasis charms. Tomorrow he'd take the boys to the Ministry of Magic and pay a visit to his old friend, Ludovico. He'd fire-call him later.

Right now, a good long soak with bath salts was much more important.

– – – – –

Harry let out a startled yell as two men simultaneously apparated into existence right beside his bed. Healer Smith dropped her wand in shock, holding her hand to her chest, as two redheaded twins materialized out of thin air and conjured themselves comfy armchairs to land on simultaneously.

"Harry, my good boy!"

"Quite good to see you lad!"

"Smashing indeed, I trust this lovely nurse has serviced your more exquisite needs?" asked George, winking heartily to the nurse as a small smile broke out on her face, covered instantly with her best Madame Pomfrey impression.

"We've just been battling Dark Lords,"

"Death Eaters…"

" The various troll and gluttonous goblin…"

"You know how time flies when you're vanquishing the forces of evil…"

" And yet, throughout it all, the image of our savior shone throughout…"

"The Boy-Who-Lived-Forever, Mr. Harry Potter. We're terribly sorry we couldn't have reported in sooner" said Fred, grinning from ear to ear, left hand to his head in a completely improper salute. "But, with much fanfare and trickery, we've finally escaped the clutches of our nurses! Considering just how gorgeous they were though, I'm not sure that was the best idea..."

"Right you are, Fred! War-hardened heroes with red hair…"

"Taking on and triumphing over evil in the magical world…"

"At the very least we'll be in the top 10 most eligible wizarding bachelors in all of England, if not first and second." Both twins nodded in tandem. "And yet, somehow, with all of our considerable charm…"

"reputable wit…"

"dashing good-looks…"

"and bright business prospects…"

"Our nurses can't hold a candle to the lovely lady tending your most grievous of wounds," praised George, raking his eyes down the form of Mrs. Smith, licking his lips as she turned bright red underneath their scrutiny.

"Really, you boys… much too young" she stammered, picking up her wand and attempting unsuccessfully to calm her now rapidly racing heart. "I'll leave the three of you alone," she said, before partying the tent doors and slipping outside.

Harry had watched the entire exchange wearing a smile on his face, as Fred and George had obviously intended. Healer Smith had obviously tried to talk to him, but she simply didn't know what to say. Harry knew that he was impulsively introverted at times, and only those who barely knew him thought him arrogant and full of fame. The twins did a far better job than everyone else of not simply ignoring what ignited Harry's fury. Sure, painting over every dismal fact of his life with a comedic overtone probably wasn't very healthy, but it allowed him to cope. It was what Sirius had been good at, and Harry was thankful that the twins had known there was a place to be filled in his life, and promptly done exactly that.

" So, no more broken bones, irreversible hexes, nasty Dark wizard curses?" asked Fred, while George took out his wand and waved it a few times around for emotional effect.

"No, I'm fine" said Harry, chuckling despite being aware that he was only alive due to her ministrations. "How's everyone else?" He knew that there was no possible way for everyone to still be alive, but he'd tried his best…

"Well, Fred and I have been trying to take as much gold as we can from the lake. Almost got the Unspeakables and the Goblins into proper fisticuffs, too!" George looked put out, thinking that entertainment would've been marvelous indeed. "Nasty smart blighters out there, though, combined forces to defeat us. Can't be too smart though, if we're the ones that finished off old Tommy!"

"Too right you are," said Fred, avoiding the question that Harry had asked them.

"Fred, George. You're my best friends, my only family. Just tell me, please?" pleaded Harry, a longing in his eyes. He needed those names.

"Well, Neville, McGonagall, and Bill are all…" What they were Harry never found out, because the tent door opened abruptly, and the three wizards turned to look at the entrance. Minister Scrimgeour, Harry recognized, along with the Head Auror. Shacklebolt had given Harry dossiers of every Auror and Department Head that it was important to know, and McMullen had been on that list. He didn't know the final man that entered the room, but his cloak signified him as an Unspeakable, and his face was completely hidden from view. Harry didn't trust someone he couldn't see, it gave the man the look of a Dementor, and the overall aura of mystery seeping from the Unspeakable was disconcerting. The look the Minister gave the two twins was one of disgruntlement, as they marched into the room with a Healer that Harry hadn't ever seen before.

"Weasleys! As much as I'm sure Mr. Potter here values your presence, he is still recovering from his wounds. The healer's we've brought to assist you in your recovery are searching frantically for your whereabouts. I suggest you find them, as you will be traveling to St. Mungos shortly along with the rest of the survivors. Madame Bonham has repeatedly said that Mr. Potter needs hours of uninterrupted rest, and I shall not have you tiring out the wizarding world's savior." Minister Scrimgeour gave no room for interpretation that he wanted Harry alone. The Weasley twins were prone to shun authority, but thought it prudent to agree.

"Well, Harry, I guess this means goodbye…"

"Please, don't cry, we'll see each other soon…" pleaded Fred, winking and flashing a trademark Weasley grin.

"Promise to write me! Harry!" cried George, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping away imaginary tears as his brother forcefully dragged him out of the room. Their theatrics were over the top, but Harry never minded. The twins always reminded him that life was simply what you made of it, and they constantly made it a time of laughter, smiles, and fun.

While he appreciated the laughter, Harry was undeniably magically exhausted. He wondered momentarily just how long Healer Smith would stay away, as his muscles were beginning to ache once again and his shoulder was sending flashes of pain down his left arm. Instead of asking for help, Harry turned to the three men of considerable power, who were finishing conjuring chairs to sit in.

Minister Scrimgeour leaned forward with his arms on his knees; his worn and scarred hands entwined together like a tree's branches, and looked him in his eyes. "Harry, the first thing I have to ask you is the most important. How sure are you that Voldemort is gone forever?" Scrimgeour was deathly still, saying the Dark Lord's name without the stutter that Harry normally associated with Tom Riddle's name.

"His name was Tom Riddle sir, and he's dead for good this time. He's not wandering around as a disembodied spirit. I made sure of that," answered Harry; acutely aware he hadn't told the Minister how he'd done it.

"How, may we ask, did you defeat him?" asked McMullen, a disbelieving tone in his voice. "What did you do, that hundreds before you failed at?" Harry knew that McMullen was a bit like Mad-Eye had been, suspicious of everyone, needing answers for every question.

Harry smiled a contemptuous smile at the man, stating, "Fate, sir. No one else was destined to defeat him but me." All three men's faces were incredulous at that explanation, and Minister Scrimgeour leaned back in his chair.

"Do you mean to tell me," asked Rufus, " that you wished Voldemort away? Harry, we're well familiar with the prophecy, that's why we lent you the Ministry's full support in defeated Voldemort. But the prophecy didn't defeat him. You did. We need to know how you did it so we can prevent another uprising."

Rufus motioned to his left casually. "This is Vernachi Debutanya, Head of the Unspeakables." The man smiled a dangerous smile, and Harry wondered how that possibly could have put him at ease.

"Mr. Potter, the Unspeakables act exactly like our name. We are the most secretive society in the Magical World, investigating the most profound questions regarding magic in today's world. We would like to know why thousands of hours of research, hundreds of theories, and the finest minds in the Magical world failed where you succeeded in defeating Lord Voldemort." Harry knew why the question was posed, but considered it a mistake on the Minister's part to have it delivered by a man with no face. He smiled wryly, and shifted on his hospital bed.

"We are prepared to lend all of our resources to whatever magic your answer entails, and recruit you directly into the Unspeakable program as of today." Harry knew that being an Unspeakable was a lifelong commitment, and a great way to lead a lavish wizarding life. That didn't mean he was naive and blinded by galleons; the Potter family fortune had been increasing dramatically since he hired a couple of muggleborn graduates from Hogwarts who'd attended graduate school at Harvard in economics and finance.

"Suffice to say, I'm the only one who knows the magic. None of you could even learn it."

"Preposterous Mr. Potter," scoffed McMullen. "Despite your own narcissism, there are many other powerful witches and wizards in the world besides you. Even if what you say is true, what happens if another Dark Lord arises again? We need that knowledge, and we need to share it with the world," said McMullen, angrily gesturing his hands into the air.

"The Department of Magical Law Enforcement should've done their job in the first place sir, instead of relying on a teenager to fight their battles for them," replied Harry scathingly, his temper rising at the obstinate men in from of him.

"That's not good enough for me Mr. Potter," said Scrimgeour, frowning at Harry's inability to co-operate.

"What's is? Giving you peace after thirty years of war? What more do you want from me?"

That comment struck a telling blow, as Scrimgeous recoiled slightly from Harry's words. All the good will was irrevocably lost moments later.

"Besides, it won't make any difference! You're telling me about the possibility of another Dark Lord, and I'll tell you right here and now another one's coming in the next year!" yelled Harry, hands clenched, thoroughly pissed at the narrow-mindedness Scrimgeour and company were showing.

"The Ministry's full of pure-blood supremacists, and now that Dumbledore's dead, I'm all that stands between the muggleborn and people like you. The power vacuum that formed the moment I defeated Voldemort will not stay empty for long. I'm twenty years old, Minister, I've earned my right to whatever life I choose, and yet I cannot have peace! My mind will not let me sit idly by, as I promised myself I would, and watch as you foolish bastards fuck it all up again."

Scrimgeour banished his chair, and stood up forcefully. "That's going too far, Mr. Potter," stressing his name like Snape used too. "I trust you know who stands in front of you? It's us you're calling fools, and I'll not tolerate your insubordination. Is it you who's considered turning against the Ministry? Perhaps your mind-link with Voldemort has turned you dark?" Scrimgeour pulled his wand and loosely held it in his hand, a quick warning his accusations were serious.

Harry was momentarily shocked silent. Then something in his mind snapped, and his lungs screamed out at the injustice. "FUCK YOU! MY WHOLE LIFE I'VE LIVED BY PROPHECY! I LIVE BUT I HAVE NO FREE WILL! I BREATHE, BUT FOR DESTINY! MY LIFE WAS DEFEATING VOLDEMORT, AND I'VE LOST EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING! WHAT'S LEFT IN MY VICTORY BUT DEFEAT? MY MIND? I WAS IN VOLDEMORT'S MIND! I WATCHED HIM MURDER EVERYONE!"

Harry breathed in a tortuous breath and then screamed to the world, "I FELT THEIR PAIN!"

The last four words cried out from his bruised soul, and tears began coursing down his face, all the guilt and hurt from the last three years coursing through his veins. He remembered casting a fatal _Diffindo_ curse at Hermione Granger, his best friend, after she'd been cursed repeatedly by the _Cruciatus_, forced into submission by the _Imperious_, and systematically murdered her entire family and Mrs. Weasley at Christmas at the Burrow. He felt her life's blood coursing over his hands every day, feeling dirty and unclean, unfit to live with her death at his hands.

He remembered Ginny Weasley and the Assault on Hogsmeade, her body lying battered underneath the framework of the Three Broomsticks, cursing Voldemort's Death Eaters until his personal killing curse stole the light from her eyes, and the only girlfriend Harry had every had.

He remembered Ron Weasley, cocky and sure of his strategic genius, fall victim to Augustus Rookwood, one of the smartest Ravenclaws and strategists to ever graduate Hogwarts. When the tables were turned and Harry's best friend literally exploded from the inside, it took the deaths of Aurors Kinglsey, Mad-Eye Moody, and Gregory Hartshorne to ensure his subsequent escape and apparation. As Harry vividly relived the deaths of most everyone close to him, he didn't see Scrimgeour activate a blue card he slipped back into his pocket.

"EVERY VICTIM, EVERY BATTLE, IVE FELT DEATH LIKE NONE HAS BEFORE! YOU COULDN'T BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE DARKNESS! EVERYONE IVE LOVED HAS DIED BY VOLDEMORT'S HAND, AND YOU'RE ACCUSING ME OF BECOMING THE WIZARD WHO DESTROYED MY LIFE? I FOUGHT FOR THE LIGHT!" yelled Harry, wondering when peace would ever come. He had been born to defeat Voldemort, but his life was not just death, destruction, and war. It couldn't be. Fate had no further use for him now that his prophecy was fulfilled. He was free at last, yet shackled to the past, to memory, to promises made. At least they were his own promises.

"Mr. Potter!" stated Minister Scrimgeour harshly, "We just want your continued cooperation in establishing peace in the magical world. Surely after all this fighting you must agree with that?" Harry froze after Scrimgeour spoke, angrily wiping away tears he didn't want anyone to see, ignoring the pain in the arm he raised to his face, leaving wet smears across a scarred and mangled complexion.

"With all due respect, Minister, now that Voldemort's gone, the only cause Purebloods have left to follow is a renewed continuation of their own agenda." Harry knew his words were right, and knew that men in front of him would ignore them forever; the political workings of the Wizengamot governed all. The answer was to cut the head from the beast, but as Scrimgeour was that head, Harry was sure he didn't want to hear that.

"That's what I intend to change, Minister. I've survived Voldemort more times than I can count, and I defeated him today. Too long has our society been a refuge for the arrogant, for the greedy, for the corrupt, for those who entrench class warfare upon our magical society as if they have a right to dictate the essence of life. No more, Mr. Minister. Tomorrow, I'll be championing the rights of the Muggleborn."

The Minister smiled a slightly evil smile, and Harry saw the real man behind the facade, the ambitious wizard who'd risen through the ranks of the Ministry as an Auror and politician. "Well, Mr. Potter, there happens to be a problem with that statement. As of thirty minutes ago, there are no Muggleborn left to champion." Harry's jaw dropped, as if a boxer had just slammed his jaw, and the second punch was coming round for the KO.

"What do you mean?" he whispered, his brain disoriented at the triumphant looks Scrimgeour, McMullen, and Debutanya were giving him.

"It's simple. Voldemort managed, as a final salvo, to murder every British Muggleborn witch and wizard under the age of twelve. For the next twelve years, for all intents and purposes, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry will only have pureblooded first-year students," Scrimgeour ended with a dry flourish.

Harry couldn't believe it, refused to consider it at first, but he felt the truth in the words. In his final salvo with Voldemort, Harry had noticed an evil bubble of vengeance, even in his final moments, which had dismayed Harry and led him to believe he'd not seen the last of his mortal enemy. Voldemort's hand had stretched beyond the grave.

As he lay back on the bed, his head hung in disbelief, a new nurse walked into the room and quickly conferred with Scrimgeour. After a few whispered words, she approached Harry's bedside, and asked him to lie back down.

"Where's Healer Smith?" he asked, wondering what was going on. He reached for his wand, instantly suspecting something terrible was about to happen, but it was nowhere near. He tried a wandless summoning charm, but nothing happened, and he used up his last meager reserves of magical power.

"Harry, Harry Harry," Scrimgeour trailed off, spacing his words ever so carefully. "I'm not quite sure you quite realize what the death of Voldemort has truly brought. The entire Wizengamot, as you've so cleverly deduced, is made up of pureblooded wizards. It is true, also, that many families with those seats are far less reputable than their predecessors, but they are still pure. Most of the Muggleborn faced persecution from Voldemort's influence as they grew up, let alone the dire threat of Voldemort showing up on their doorstep to make an example of them. Fear of death is a motivation unlike any other, and most muggleborn disappeared to live life as Muggles. It was easier that way for them."

Scrimgeours eyes hardened resolutely. "To us? They gave up magic! No pureblooded wizard ever gives up his magic. That's the legacy we're trying to preserve, and with the entire Wizengamot behind the pureblood movement, more and more laws will emerge to keep the muggleborn from discarding the miraculous gift they've been given. Do you doubt that the next Headmaster of Hogwarts will be inclined towards them if they no longer attend the school? How hard do you think it would be to pass a Ministry ordinance expelling the currently enrolled; they have no political representation to speak of. The wizarding world, in time, will completely sever itself from the Muggle world, taking every pureblood and half blood and vanishing. There are enough alive to survive, and with no wars to speak of regarding the separation, and a strict enough guideline for repopulation, in twenty years we'll have an entirely expanded pure-blood population twice the size it is now. Genetically safe, and entirely pureblooded, with the full force of its combined history and power." Scrimgeour smiled down at Harry, the calculated smile of someone who had outmaneuvered his opponent to the most extraordinary degree.

The potions in his body and mind slowed his thoughts, but Harry was still coming to grips with what he was hearing. He'd like to think that the many half-bloods in existence, and the moderate purebloods would oppose such a movement, but he wasn't so sure. Everyone who had been seriously fighting the ways of Voldemort was dead; the Order was decimated, and the Ministry had come out on top. If there were any resistance to the change that Minister Scrimgeour was talking about, it would be quickly stamped out.

"Some of the most powerful wizards have been Muggleborn! More could be if they could just receive trainer equal to purebloods. There's squibs, just like there's below-average muggleborn!" Harry replied, desperately trying not to fall prey to a political take-over, lost to the sands of time. History was written in the form of the victors, and Harry didn't doubt that his defeat of Voldemort would be just the first chapter of a history describing himself as a pureblood champion if he couldn't find a way out of this mess.

"What about anyone who opposes you? England has the lowest wizard-muggle ratio in its history, and you're talking of another war!"

"I can try to stop this as Minister, if you would just give me the magic you used to defeat Voldemort. That's all I ask. Then all four of us will walk out of her smiling, and you'll have thousands of witches throwing themselves at your feet, the entire Potter fortune at your fingertips, itching to be spent. You are, and will continue to be, wizarding royalty," said Scrimgeour, as if it were the grandest thing to ever be.

"You wouldn't kill me, Rufus. Maybe Fudge would have, but you're not him," pleaded Harry, an actual jolt of fear running down his body. He was under too many numbing potions to move correctly, had no wand, and was currently recovering from his battle with Voldemort. Less than thirty minutes ago he had been dying, and now he was alive, but unable to change a situation growing ever more perilous.

"I'm not going to kill you Harry. But I will know how you defeated Voldemort. I will not have a wizard in my country that solely possess the power to vanquish foes the Ministry could not."

Harry raised his fiery green eyes in defiance, meeting the cold grey ones of the Minister.

"Last chance Harry. Before all you worked for, and you yourself, vanish into the remnants of history."

He said not a word, though he knew it meant his life.

Rufus placed his hand on top of Harry's head, sighing with regret, and then backed away while the new nurse stepped forward. "Harry, this is Ms. Watson; she will shortly be putting you into a magical coma. It will tragically be a long one." Scrimgeour tipped his hat to Harry before striding purposefully out the doors of the Temporarily Magical St. Mungos Emergency Tents, Vernachi Debutanya marching right at his heels. Thaddeus McMullen looked on almost remorsefully as Harry Potter struggled, calling on any accidental magic and the hope of a rescue before realizing that no one was out there.

Harry had defeated Voldemort, but severely underestimated the politics of his removal. His half-mad and half-envisioned fantasies had gorgeous blue water and white-ocean sands somewhere far away from the tragedy his life had become. But reality was much colder. His friends were dead, he was mentoring his once-mentors, and there was no one to turn to, no magical Albus Dumbledore to apparate in and cast an obscure bit of magic making everything all right. He was well and truly fucked.

The wards that had sprung up when the three men entered had been the type befitting the stature of the three most politically powerful wizards in England. Now Harry knew that they also prevented him from doing anything remotely magical to escape. It was protection grand enough to become a literal prison, shackling him to his destiny. Thaddeus McMullen's face turned to one of satisfaction as Healer Watson flicked her wand this way and that in a gothic twelve arc pattern; with a final punch through the blurry red outlines, she slowed Harry Potters heart, and darkness descended.

– – – – –

Healer Elizabeth's last thoughts concerning Harry Potter occurred right after she had emerged from her tent. She was immediately told by an intern that Madame Diamante Bonham, Head Healer of St. Mungos had requested a meeting with her, and there was no possible way to question such a summoning. After strolling for a minute she came upon Madame Bonham, who was accompanied by one of Minister Scrimgeour's Undersecretaries. When questioned, he said that everyone was evacuating the giant Goblin cavern. He spun a story that Lord Voldemort had assassinated most of the Goblin heads, and an entirely new group had been assigned to the Diagon Alley branch of Gringotts, a group less than enthused with the wizards being wherever they currently were. Elizabeth questioned the Auror about Harry, but he'd resolutely slapped a portkey on her, Madame Bonham had taken her arm, and they both had disappeared immediately from the beautiful lake of gold, reassurances echoing in her ear about Harry Potter being evacuated to St. Mungos.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Madame Bonham had led her personally to the cadets she'd been instructing, thanked her, and told her a promotion to Research Healer would be coming through the floo tonight. Elizabeth was completely stunned; she had worked her entire life attempting to rise the ranks, her childhood dream that had stagnated immediately coming into fruition. Her emotions were overpowered by the special recognition from the Head Healer of St. Mungos, and suddenly she'd been given something she'd given up hope of ever attaining. Apparently there were places that Muggleborn witches could rise to if they worked hard enough, and she had finally done it.

As she shockingly gathered her brood of trainee Healers about, Elizabeth failed to notice an Auror, wearing the red-robes of Magical Law Enforcement, returning his pale ivory wand to his wand sheathe. His family's special brand of magic had been the manipulations of the mind, and his _confundus_ hex was a living breathing entity, not some mere cloud of confusion that emerged from most wands of Hogwarts graduates. She'd remember this night differently thirty times for the next thirty nights, and by the end of her dreams, she wouldn't have a clue as to what really happened. Even if a pensieve were used, all thirty memories would emerge from the end of her wand. Auror Daniels-Lailen had always known his second cousin Thaddeus was ambitious, but this operation they were running was scandalous. And the men orchestrating it had confided in him, and that made him part of the history books.

He smiled a crooked smile and disappeared with the slightest of pops, apparating away to an anonymous flat in London.

– – – – –

The Italian Ministry of Magic was arguably one of the most beautifully constructed buildings in the world. Years of artistic revival and innovation had combined to create a building that was representative of every age in Italian history. Everything from Byzantine two-dimensionality to the French gothic adorned the hallways and plazas of the Ministry, giving it an air of national pride. The Italians were heirs to the historical definition of modern civilization, and the Ministry of Magic held that same pompous stance.

It was through these hallways that Augustus Medichi traveled, levitating two stunned young boys, drawing quick glances and wandering eyes that immediately shifted away. Augustus could understand their slight confusion, but as he was a high-standing member of the Wizengamot, he thought their discretion sorely lacking for his rank. He had sent notice to the Minister of Magic, Ludovico Bugiardini, of a matter of national importance, and had been verified of the proper time to present himself to the Minister's lavish conference room. Augustus' walk echoed off the marble floor, the hallway's opulence increasing with every step. Upon reaching the doorway leading to the Minister's private chambers, he found the Minister's private guards and immediately surrendered his wand.

Upon presenting himself to the Blue-Watch Guards, he was taken into a room preceding the Minister's chambers and immediately restrained by the guards with an _Immobulus_ hex. It was a selective charm, personally modified by the guard, and none could break it save for the guard who had originally cast it. His head was free, and he drank the offered potion, a polyjuice reverser and magical body scan for weapons or any ill intent. Upon seeing the results, as was procedure, the guard took a small vial and poured three drops on the tongue of Augustus. He felt his mind being invaded with a fog, covering his thoughts and individuality with a soft blanket of carelessness.

"What is your name?" asked the guard.

"Augustus Medichi."

"Are you under the influence of any potions, hexes, curses, or rituals that have changed your true identity?"

"No."

"Please answer to the following after all questions have been asked. Do you, Augustus Medichi, intend to harm the Minister of Magic, Ludovico Bugiardini, in any shape or form, be it through magical or muggle means? Do you have any knowledge of any future attempt upon the life of the Minister through direct or indirect knowledge? Have you ever been a part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Italian Ministry of Magic?" asked the Blue-Watch Guard, his wand carefully, unswervingly pointing at Augustus' head.

"No, I do not, and I have not." Augustus was immediately allowed to move again, and was given back his wand. Swiftly composing himself and levitating the boys once more, he stepped through the newly opened door, and into the Minister's chamber-room.

Minister Bugiardini was a man proud of Italy's heritage, much as Augustus was, and the room was filled with blue wall panels and gold trim, with a variety of green and red couches situation about the room. Every wall surface was covered in paintings long thought lost to the Muggle world and frescos none but previous Ministers and their auspicious guests had seen. Sculptures of man, beast, and church outnumbered the live occupants of the room by a ratio of two to one; quite an accomplishment as the Minister was entertaining a few dozen dinner guests.

Augustus waited by the entryway door as the Blue-Watch guard announced his presence, and then strolled in levitating the two unconscious boys. He stopped atop the steps leading down to the lounge, resting his gnarled hand on the carved banister. Minister Bugiardini smiled his way, and clapped his hands together once, sharply clanging the many gaudy rings he wore together. Talk ceased immediately, and the guests politely put down their glasses, some partially full with a 1945 Mouton that had circulated about the room earlier.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been my distinct pleasure to entertain each and every one of you, and to personally relax within these beautiful walls. Most certainly a time will come again when we all gather here together, but alas, that time is not know. Mr. Medichi and I have urgent matters of state to attend to, so I beg your indulgence as I end what has been a most pleasurable evening." Minister Bugiardini bowed towards his guests, every gentlemen bowed in turn, every lady curtsied, and smiles were visible on all the guests' faces as they contentedly departed the room.

As soon as the door shut, unbreakable silencing charms went into effect, and Augustus clapped his hands together, once, twice, three times, exclaiming, "Very smooth, Mr. Minister. You can almost see the strings that direct their movements." Augustus walked down the entryway steps, and picked up the empty bottle that had been passed around.

"A 1945 Mouton? Wherever did you get a bottle?" asked Augustus, knowing full well just how much the Minister hated wasting his precious wine-collection on foreign dignitaries and influential Wizengamot members.

"Shut-up, sit down, and have a glass with me." Bugiardini huffed as he sat down on one of his fine leather couches, grabbed an unfinished glass and finally treating himself to his own vintage. "Might as well finish this off. Would you care to get piss-drunk with the Minister, Augustus?"

Augustus smiled, for the first-name recognition meant that nothing had changed between himself and his childhood friend.

"Unfortunately, my good friend, I cannot. If you don't mind, though, I'll have one glass." The Minister waved his hand nonchalantly, and Augustus combined a few glasses until his was full. He eased his robust frame onto the comfortable leather, and toasted his thanks to the Minister. The wine that flooded his mouth was one of the best he'd ever tasted, and only once before, as a celebrated guest at the Minister's inauguration ball. There was a remarkable bouquet of cassis, boasting the concentration and vigor of grapes and tannins, which combined with an intensity of expression not normally seen done so well in such sweet fruit. Any hint of magic simply ruined grapes, and he considered a fine wine to be the greatest muggle invention ever. Quite a delicacy, and frankly, Augustus knew he could spend the entire evening drinking away some of the finest wines in the world. But his old bones were tired, his muscles sore, and apparently the Minister, having noticed the two boys upon entrance, had decided their presence insignificant enough to ignore. Augustus knew differently, and began his story.

"While I was vacationing on the Island of Corsica, there was quite an explosion on one of the beaches. Quite naturally thinking some magical duel had gone horribly wrong in the middle of all the muggles, I rushed over to see what was going on. Imagine my surprise when I found the insidious Dark Mark rising over the beach."

Ludovico managed to maintain hold of his wine stem, but just barely. "Voldemort? What possibly for?" he asked, furrowing his brows in an attempt to guess at the Dark Lord's movements. The only contact they'd have was the death of the elder son of the Pisano Family, and Ludovico believed that the British government wasn't weak enough to fall yet to the pureblood supremacist.

"For what purpose, I have no idea, but that's not what caught my attention. Those two boys," Augustus motioned behind him indifferently, "were huddled in the middle of scorched sand, so hot it'd turned to glass. Besides burning off their clothes and hair, there wasn't a scratch on their bodies."

"Uninjured?" asked Ludovico curiously, which was verified by Augustus. "Have you performed any tests?"

"No, I wanted to bring this matter to you personally. Two boys able to withstand the wrath of Voldemort, though… they would be a great addition to any family," said Augustus suggestively, drumming his fingers on the wine glass. "That is, if they don't already belong to one. But memories can be erased just as easily as new ones planted..."

Ludovico smiled a charismatic smile, got up, threw some floo powder into the fire, and yelled through the receiving end for the most experienced available Obliviator and Healer to attend his lounge immediately. Even more important than the size of the boy's magical core was which family they had come from. If the blood test determined they were part of a family allied to him, Ludovico would have no choice but to return them. But if the boys somehow were one of his family's enemies, or better yet anonymous… the situation would paint a very different picture.

It quickly became apparent through the fervor of rapid diagnostics charms that the twins were an alteration on the average wizard.

The words "Oh my Lord," jettisoned from her throat. The nurse leaned backwards abruptly, palms held to her mouth in shock, wand clattering on the ground.

Ludovico and Augustus gravitated towards the twins, immediately captivated.

The nurse pointed a shaking finger at the small lads. "I have never... in all my life... they have two cores!"

"What." deadpanned Ludovico.

"They're identical twins! With dual cores! Incredible! And the lines... they're _different,_" she muttered with a perplexed sort of confusion.

"Any Italian relations?"

"None."

"And related to none of the international bloodlines we have on file?"

"In a word? No."

"They're muggleborn, they have to be!" Ludovico clinked his wine glass vigorously against Augustus', as the sweet laughter of unexpected riches bubbled forth in laughter.

After a hearty swig, the Minister collected himself.

And promptly cast an Obliviate directly to the skull of the Nurse, sending her on her merry way ignorant of her monumental discovery. The Obliviator stood calmly by, unperturbed that his vaunted skills had yet to be called upon.

"If I may interject?" asked Augustus, collecting his thoughts. "We should consult Cardinal Battista. Have him personally search the Vatican archives for a manuscript on duality, or specs for rituals. This can't be the only time this, _mutation_, has happened."

The unasked question lingered between the two grown men as they glanced at the Duncan twins.

"We'll obliviate the boys. Place them in a Muggle orphanage, out of the way, no one will suspect a thing. If we find no such ritual, I''ll adopt the boys as an act of charity benefiting muggleborn relations."

"And on the off chance someone else adopts the boys?"

"Don't get daft on me, compulsion curse takes care of that," said Ludovico sternly, before his features melted back to friendliness. He clapped Augustus on the shoulder and met his eyes.

"You have bestowed a great honor upon me today, my old friend. I shall never forget it." The Minister motioned for the Obliviator to get to work.

"Delete it all, and leave no keyhole. The context of individuality they've developed must be preserved, but everything else goes," were the chilling words that echoed throughout the Minister's private chambers, as the Head Obliviator raised his wand.

"_OBLIVIATE!"_

"_OBLIVIATE!"_

– – – – –

The ambition it took to become the number one reporter for the Daily Profit was on a scale most weren't willing to sacrifice. She'd back-stabbed friends countless times, invaded personal privacy as if no law stood in her place, sold her body to many callers, and had interviewed so many criminals on the run it was amazing the Aurors hadn't simply eliminated her out of annoyance. But Rita Skeeter knew what made for great gossip; spreading lies and half-truths was infinitely more fun than writing the facts, and embellishment was simply a fine word for great writing.

The apartment Rita occupied was a spacious flat in Muggle London, enhanced with magic to an absurd degree, and giving her the elegance and image of wealth she'd always dreamed of as a little Slytherin. Three of the apartment's four walls had been converted into giant windows, and she'd magically placed the elevator into the middle of her flat. Mahogany bookshelves filled with articles shed written filled the only wall that didn't have a fabulous view of the London Bridge and Parliament.

Rita was currently sitting at her writing station, a little balcony made entirely of glass with flowing waterfalls, furiously attempting to finish her article. She had so much blackmail on the editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet that he always waited until she completed an article to decide what to publish, and her mouth was known to be just as effective as her quill. Why cast spells around like madmen when her words could do far greater damage to someone's reputation than a silly little jinx? Rita occasionally wondered why there weren't more reporters like her, willing to sacrifice anything for a climb to the top; obviously she'd eliminated her competition early in her reporting career, but if someone worthy came along once in a while she might occasionally let them have a story.

A whoosh of green flames erupted from her fireplace, interrupting her train of thought, and a voice she didn't hear very often called out to her through the flames.

"Ms. Skeeter, are you home? It's Rufus Scrimgeour, and we need to speak urgently. I promise you it'll be worth your while."

Rita threw her quill down immediately, jumped up, and quickly moved into the room. Before the fireplace's line of sight, she composed herself, conjured a wineglass, and briskly walked into the Minister's frame of reference.

"Mr. Minister. How… delectable to see you," purred Rita, sitting herself down on one of her plush armchairs and crossing her legs, one hand holding her glass, the other gracefully folding around her prominent chin.

"Likewise Ms. Skeeter. Knowing yourself, quick-witted as we all have come to know, you'll have submitted your Daily Prophet feature for tomorrows paper." said Scrimgeour, knowing he'd just retract it if she had.

"I was actually just putting the finishing touches on it before you called, Mr. Minister. I trust you do still allow the freedom of the press?"

"That we do. And as Minister, I've always sanctioned the upholding of the law. Especially the appearance that the law is being upheld when it's being broken." Said Scrimgeour with a cheshire grin.

Rita emitted a slight gasp, holding her hand to her ample chest and exclaiming, "Mr. Minister! Are you telling me to condone breaking the trust my readers have in my entirely factual reporting?" Her voice had taken on a sultry tone, and Scrimgeour knew he was not a patient man; he had no time for beating around the bush as it were.

"I have no time to flirt with the likes of you, Madame," and both parties immediately lost their calm, collected air. Rita knew that negotiations to change her article would most likely emerge next. "However, I do need your help. Tomorrow's edition of the Daily Prophet will be the most remembered in the history of the wizarding world; but you must write what I tell you to."

Rita lost the tone and poise of an elegant woman, and gained the air of a dangerous opponent. "I write what I want, Mr. Minister, and that's of no concern to you unless it's worth my while."

"1,000 Galleons," said Scrimgeour automatically, and Rita knew he'd go much higher with how quickly that number had come out. She had an idea how much her silver tongue was worth, but it never hurt to verify.

"The Malfoy Manor along with all titles," she countered, seeing the Minister's eyes widen before wrinkle-lines creased his face with a frown.

"Preposterous. Delusional, even. 2,000 Galleons, and one month's monopoly on all special Ministry of Magic announcements," he shot back, determined not to let the likes of Rita Skeeter hold sway in a government position.

"An estate, personally built by the Ministry to my exact specifications, on decent lands of well repute" said Rita, and the haggling continued. Various offers were tossed about with the Ministry giving up more than it wanted to, and Rita sacrificing more than she wished. In the end, Rita had a demure smile on her insect like face, having been granted an estate with hereditary titles, and a Wizengamot seat to be collected upon her eldest grandchild's seventeenth birthday.

After all negotiations had finished, Scrimgeour detailed exactly what he wanted in her article for the first two pages of tomorrow's Daily Prophet. Rita hid a smile from breaking out on her face until the Minister had left and her fireplace returned to normal, before breaking out in laughter.

All she had to do now was what she did best, which was drawing parallels that never existed from events that had already taken place. Tonight she would be sowing the seeds of future generations, and she had finally attained everything she'd ever wanted. She was on an equal playing field for the first time in her life, and in two generations her family would be amongst the foremost of families in Wizarding Britain. She laughed a deep robust laugh, sounding quite odd coming from her very lithe frame, and walked back to her balcony and her writing desk. It was time to get to work changing the truth.

Harry Potter Defeats Lord Voldemort: Special Edition Daily Prophet

Written by Rita Skeeter

He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was killed yesterday after thirty years of war by Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. In a surprise attack, Lord Voldemort, to be known henceforth as Tom Marvolo Riddle, attempted to access the depths of Gringott's for the rumored Well of Feliciana. He failed to find the long-rumored source of liquid gold, but invariably found his match in one Mr. Harry Potter. Mr. Potter, since graduating Hogwarts last year, has fought constantly against Lord Voldemort with the Order of the Phoenix, and worked side-by-side with the Ministry in order to put an end to the years of oppression and injustice suffered by many from the hands of a few. This reporter wondered often at the many times Mr. Potter escaped Lord Voldemort's clutches, and reported many a time that our savior might have resorted to the Dark Arts in order to combat the greatest evil of our world. It is this reporter's relief to report words quoted directly from the Head Unspeakable of the Ministry of Magic, and to apologize for any slight ever made to Mr. Potter.

"Mr. Potter resoundingly defeated Lord Voldemort last night. Before Mr. Potter became incoherent, he managed to speak a few words to the Minister of Magic and myself. For security reasons, we cannot divulge them, but all of our evidence points to Mr. Potter having used one of Merlin's most powerful spells to defeat Lord Voldemort."

Never has a man sacrificed so much to bring peace to our world. The similarities between Albus Dumbledore are Harry Potter are many, with the exception being that Albus Dumbledore remained conscious and well after his defeat of the Dark Lord Grindelwald, enjoying an life full of many memories and filled great deeds. Harry Potter, this reporter tearfully reports, is currently in a magical coma; the many injuries he sustained from Tom Riddle's evil hand, coupled with a complete magical exhaustion forced Harry Potter into the coma, from which he has yet to wake from. The best Healers from St. Mungos are being provided free-of-charge to Mr. Potter, in order that he be restored to health as quickly as possible.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named; all these are names for an evil man who destroyed countless lives. Names for a wizard, this reporter has recently discovered from reputable sources, to be a half-blood imposter who championed pureblood rights. Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour, upon questioning about the possibility of his return, stated that, "We understand that Lord Voldemort is dead, and will never again walk on English soil in any shape or form." When asked about the ramifications of those still alive with the Dark Mark, the Minister coolly said that, "All men and woman with the Dark Mark will be sent through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Never again will any remnant of Lord Voldemort be a part of Magical England."

With the Wizengamot convening for an emergency session today, the political effects of Lord Voldemort's death have yet to be seen, but the joy that this reporter saw on the faces of the witches and wizards gathered for the Ministry of Magic's announcement yesterday spoke volumes for England's future. The war is over, peace is finally upon us, and our children can finally walk free, no longer afraid of shadows, white-masks, and Dark Lords.

"Massacre of the Muggleborn," page 2, 10.

"Is Voldemort Really Gone? An In-depth Interview with the Unspeakables," page 3, 11.

"Life after Voldemort: Economics, Education, and Reform," page 4, and 5.

"The Boy-Who-Lived: England's savior," page 6, 12.

"Unknown Heroes: St. Mungos Healers," page 7, 9.

"Order of Merlin recipients," page 8.

"A Pureblooded Hogwarts first-year class," page 13.

"Obituaries," page 14,

– – – – –

Foster the Wizards


	3. Subversives

Subversives

The three stories located atop 93 Diagon Alley's Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes had been turned into a large flat by Fred and George Weasley. The first story was packed with two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, entertainment room, and an exercise room full of weights, with a high density martial art floor and two boxing bags suspended from the ceiling. The wall that looked out onto Diagon Alley was made up of one twenty meter long window, allowing the twins an unobstructed view of the bustling shopping center.

The modern slab steps jutting from the eastern wall ascended to the second story, where the first room was a library full of dueling, potions, charms, and transfiguration books, with thousands of defensive and offensive magic treatises and scrolls alongside them, an impressive collection the twins had assembled during the war. The second room was a fully equipped dueling room with all the latest warding specs, the walls spelled to absorb most anything, channeling the excess energy into the workroom located downstairs.

The staircase ended at a third level, that opened to a simple patio open to the London sky. You could set up a concert if you cared to, and they'd had plenty, but the only current feature was a long hot tub running lengthwise along their property, letting the twins and their guests place their elbows on the edge and look down on Diagon Alley. Wards their brother Bill had painstakingly placed protected WWW and the flat, and with their own experimental additions it was a veritable fortress.

If you looked closely on an especially magical night, you would see impressions of color the wards left, shimmering, armed and ever ready.

The flat's proximity to their livelihood was convenient, and combined with their ability to enter muggle London for both pleasure and business, the locale provided the perfect HQ for the young urban businessmen. They were at the center of the English wizarding world, and the twins had spent a fair amount of their earnings making it the best bachelor pad they could envision.

Tonight though... the celebrations that continued in the streets seemed even more passionate than last nights, and Fred Weasley would've spent an entire years worth of profits to be anywhere else.

He sat forlornly, slouched over the ash centerpiece table in the middle of their flat, his head clutched in his hands. George was sitting opposite, his arms resting along the chair arms, his hands drooping off the ends, eyes puffy and red from crying, an emptiness inside their depths. George reached for the half empty bottle of firewhiskey between them and raised it to his lips, scorching alcohol burning a pathway down his throat to his stomach where it simmered, fiery tendrils creeping through his entire body.

He wordlessly passed the bottle back to Fred, who downed a swig of his own, barely grimacing as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The glass clank of the bottle on the table was the only sound inside the flat, but outside... that was another story entirely.

Thousands of witches and wizards crowded Diagon Alley, a partying mob the likes of which he'd never seen in his life. Fireworks lit the sky every few seconds, thunderous booms echoed across all the magical alley's that made up magical London, followed by deafening cheers and drunken yelling. There were blues, greens, golds, reds, and purple mortars lighting up the night sky. He knew what his Wildfire Wiz-Bangs sounded like, and any other time the explosions would sound like cash register chimes.

Instead, the revelry offended his very nature. The merry wizards gallivanting about, and the witches throwing themselves at men left and right, that was criminal. The cowards were celebrating a lie. A facade of epic proportions drawn up by politicians, implemented through the media, and swallowed up by an ignorant and cowardly electorate. He wanted nothing more than to lash out at the anonymous strangers who's only crime was the ease with which they were deceived. Their complicity with the deception being perpetrated upon England at this very moment made them worthless.

Weasley Wizarding Wheezes was open, but Fred and George had tasked their two assistants and the house elves with manning the store. It gave him time to drown his sorrows. He took another pull off the firewhiskey, this one longer, a more satisfying burn he hoped would help purge the pit of despair within him. It was a false solace, but it was all he had.

Fred knew this "magical coma" the Ministry, The Prophet, and St. Mungo's Healers were calling Harry's condition was complete and utter bullshit. The worst had already passed when they'd apparated into Harry's medical tent, and their best friend had not only been alive and kicking, but healing.

They'd simply left him to his fate. Said a few jokes, flirted with his nurse, and walked out. The thought of deception hadn't crossed his exhausted mind, and Fred felt the utter fool. Come to think of it, he should be wearing a jester's hat and motley, such was the disgrace his cunning and guile had become.

Fred's ears picked up the distortion feedback of a stereo stack starting up. One of London's wizarding bands must've joined the party. Within a minute, the first magically amplified chords rang out into the night, followed by hysterical girlish screams of pleasure. He knew the tune. "Merlin's Moonlight Madness," hit single of dance club favorites Pressure Hex. Exactly what he fucking needed.

A seething fit of rage came over him to match his depressed thoughts, and he grabbed the firewhiskey bottle, hurling it at the window with all the force he could muster. It bounced off a window charmed unbreakable, resulting only in alcohol splattering everywhere.

"Taking a trip down memory lane, when you wanted to be a chaser? Same now as then, you're always wasting your shots," said George wittily, twirling his wand about to clean up the mess.

Fred couldn't help himself anymore. He didn't want to talk, but his mouth opened anyways and words spilled out. "Why in Merlin's name didn't we sound-proof our flat?"

"We grew up inventing stuff that exploded and made enough racket to wake the dead. Why would we?"

"I can't take this shit anymore" said Fred, gesturing with one hand in the general direction of the alley.

"Bollocks, celebration is the opiate of the masses. After Voldemort, they've earned it."

"They did fuck all. Hid in their houses 'til the smoke cleared."

"They survived," said George pointedly. "To most, that's accomplishment enough."

"Cowards, the lot of 'em."

"Fred, you're my twin brother, but seriously mate, fuck you. You've been brooding about this crowd outside, like they're part of the reason for our misery. Bollocks that. Everyone out in those streets is a far cry from the wizards we are Fred, they've been running scared for years. Afraid tomorrow's the day they'll die. That the shopping trip for the kids could turn into a massacre at any second. That's the reality they've lived. Can't you understand what it feels like to have that weight lifted? To finally feel some measure of safety? The freedom to gather publicly and celebrate? Or are you too much of an obstinate,brooding, drunken bastard? Voldemort's gone, and that IS worth celebrating."

A moment's silence reigned as George's words hung in the air.

"I just... I can't stand the happiness, George. I fucking can't. Not without Harry here." Fred's morose face crumpled, and a renewed stream of tears fell down his face. He didn't even bother to wipe them away with the back of his hand, they just flowed down onto the table, leaving wet impressions of sorrow.

Then, just as quickly as the tears came, his eyes narrowed, his face crinkled with anger, and the torrent slowed to a trickle..

"I didn't risk my life for years, battle to battle, just to see our hopes and dreams die with little more than a whimper!" yelled Fred. "Scrimgeour fucked us George! And we've straight took it like poofs!"

"Of course he fucked us. We threatened his power base, his entire government. Scrimgeour's pompous cunts are still in charge because he made a decision. Betray Harry, and maintain the balance of power. It's called foresight, Fred. Godric knows we have enough experience with the concept to recognize when it's used against us."

"Against Harry! Not us, we're still fucking here. Being lauded as heroes, as fucking LEGENDS, George!"

"We are heroes, Fred. We defeated Voldemort..."

"HARRY defeated Voldemort!" shouted Fred, disgust at his own self-worth lacing his voice.

"Obviously," said George levelly. "But we were there every step of the way, survived every close scrape, and we saw it to the end. It's over, Voldemort's finished."

"It's not over! What about Harry?"

George sighed a world-heavy sigh, and slammed his head against the table. "If Harry were here, we'd all be down there gathering up kisses like a niffler hoards gold!"

"Yeah, well, he's not, now is he?" asked Fred caustically, drunken anger turned to morose sarcasm.

"No. He's a prisoner somewhere deep in the Ministry, probably the Department of Mysteries."

George paused, before casting a sobering charm at his brother with immediate effect. He cast one on himself for good measure, and banished the firewhiskey bottle before continuing.

Fred looked murderously at George having used that particular charm at this particular time.

"But really, we've got no fucking clue. Harry is trapped, somewhere, somehow, perhaps even sometime, at the personal behest of the Minister of Magic. The Ministry is also our number 1 client, and we have millions of Galleons tied up in research for their orders. Weighing those two against each other, how far are you willing to go? After surviving what we have, it's a bloody miracle we're still here. There's no sense being martyrs for a cause no one else knows but us. Last I checked though, we're the best at vindictive pranking in all of England, and those inbred fucks deserve everything that comes their way."

"The people have to know the Ministry's selling them lies," said Fred squarely. "Even if they don't believe it, we have to, at the very least, tell them our side of this fucked up mess. Add an element of incongruity to this sordid tale. And we have to find Harry, wherever he is. Extract him if we can, find his location at a minimum."

George nodded in agreement, and jabbed his wand in the air. "_Accio_ Ministry blueprints!" They came zooming downstairs from the spacious library the twins kept on the second floor, large sheets of parchment bound in rolls. With soft thuds they hit the ash desk, and the twins began unrolling the diagrams, plotting their next move.

– – – – –

Fifteen minutes before the nine am floo rush at the Ministry, two gilded fireplaces along the left side of the atrium hall lit up with green flames, and the Weasley twins stepped out. Both were dressed head to toe in the experimental battle armor they were developing for the Ministry. Without giving away trade secrets, it was mostly a dragonhide outer shell enchanted to transmit background colors through the scales, camouflage aided by strands of demiguise hair woven around the dragon scales, with a few secret bells and whistles that made them suitable for a hit wizard. Their boots were spelled quiet, and no one noticed their arrival as they stepped silently out onto the dark polished wood floors.

George immediately sprinted to the furthest end of the entrance hall, throwing down the first of two charm constructs. Fred sprinted towards the atrium and the first floo exit and entrance, throwing down the brother construct to George's. Once set, George sprinted down the entryway until both twins were in the atrium. Wands raised together, the twins brought them down in a slash with a double helix, and the charms constructs evolved, magical lines exploding from each and connecting to the other, and then seamlessly integrating with one another in a plane. In an instant, their anti-gravity charm was running and active, humming with a blueish light.

They'd improved the wide-area charm to resist Filius Flitwick's manipulations, and along with resistance to most spell dampeners it had a built in anti-disapparation jinx, as well as a magically decaying timer. The typical Ministry morning rush usually lasted ten minutes, so the timer was set for fifteen, and they'd inverted the anti-disapparation jinx to reverse itself. When it did so, every Ministry worker who'd floo-ed into work would be forcefully apparated into Muggle London, naked as the day they were born.

Quick work was made of the apparation point in the Ministry; the twins simply deployed a thousand pygmy puffs enchanted as portkeys within the apparation boundary, and set the destinations to random.

Fred watched as his brother wasted no time brandishing his wand, and transfiguring the Fountain of Magical Brethren into something more appropriate, a trifecta of Minister Scrimgeour, Head Auror Thaddeus McMullen, and an Unspeakable cloaked in shadow. Around their golden necks hung chains with signs that read, "Traitor," "Liar," and "Untrustworthy."

The security guard located in front of the golden gates that lead to the elevators, transportation for the entire Ministry, stood up from his desk, painfully aware he was all alone. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled, brandishing his wand towards the two scary looking wizards.

Fred responded with a lightning fast stunner, catching the guard straight in the face and bowling him backwards over his desk. He reached into the bottomless bag he carried slung over his chest, and pulled out a long string of Whiz-Bangs they're created specially for today. George began to conjure unremovable graffiti over the brick and glass Wizengamot family offices vertically built into the atrium walls, using a magical epoxy he'd developed last year to stick listening devices to upper echelon Death Eater houses, on surfaces spelled to resist such trickery. The black bricks that made up the atrium were a perfect base as blood red words done up in the special Weasley ink spelled out revolutionist sayings.

"Have you Questioned your Government Lately?"

"The Tree of Liberty Must be Refreshed From Time to Time with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants"

"Those Who Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible Make Violent Revolution Inevitable"

"For My Part, Whatever Anguish of Spirit It May Cost, I Am Willing to Know the Whole Truth"

"The Surest Way to Corrupt a Pureblood is to Instruct Him to Hold in Higher Esteem Those Who Think Alike, Rather Than Those Who Think Differently"

"The Ministry of Deceivers and Liars"

"Harry Potter is Alive, Imprisoned by the Ministry"

The last phrase was given special berth in the center of the atrium. Fred lit off his personal stash of Deflagration Deluxe Whiz Bangs with an _Incendio_ to the linked fuses, the sparklers having been spelled with more quotes on corruption, incompetence, and greed, the rockets programmed to leave trails of the word liar and deceiver, the Catherine wheels leaving colorful, unremovable indictments of the Ministry in their wake as they rolled over the floors, walls, and ceilings. The Whiz-Bangs exploded upwards, and began to cavort around the entire Atrium, as George and Fred paused momentarily to survey their original thirty seconds of handiwork.

"Not bad, not bad," said Fred evenly, before casting the Gemino Curse on a piece of untearable paper, with a picture of Rufus Scrimgeous in ladies clothing and a caption that read "I am a prodigious cunt." Hundreds of copies were created with thousands more to come within seconds of casting the curse, flying around and plastering themselves to wherever they could find purchase.

George took pictures of the destruction with a magical camera. They'd planned ahead, and the pictures saved not to the camera, but to the linking printing press located back at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes. He made sure to capture pictures of all the destruction and revolutionist phrases they'd painted, and when he clicked a red button on the camera, a transmission was sent to print copies for every witch and wizard in England, every magical apartment, house, and manor.

They'd estimated that with magical printing ink costs soaring of recent, their wealth would decrease by a full 4% with the printing run, but George wanted all the insurance he could contrive to ensure the Ministry didn't sweep their mischief under the rug.

"Let's move!" yelled George over the roar of the emerging dragons, knowing that every attempt to vanish the Whiz-bangs would only result in their multiplication, morphing, or the fireworks exploding into banners that lambasted the Ministry even further.

The twins sprinted through the golden gates of the Atrium to the elevators. Every elevator was on Level 8 and open, waiting for them, and the twins quickly loaded Whiz-bang bombs up with timers, and sent seven of the elevators to every other Ministry level, loaded with Decoy Detonators spelled last night with the Ministry blueprints they possessed to scuttle to the middle of each department before exploding and leaving chaos in their wake.

The Weasley twins entered one of the remaining elevators and pressed the button for Level 1, the doors slamming shut, the elevator spiriting them up within seconds to their destination. With a chime the doors opened and the twins sprinted out onto the purple carpet, wasting no time as George headed to where the stairs that connected the Ministry together were, yelling the charm _Glisseo_ and turning the stairs into one giant slide, and then casting a protection ward on his handiwork. He joined his twin through the mahogany door of The Minister of Magic after Fred annihilated it with a blasting curse, before yelling E_xpluso_, the exploding curse, over and over again at everything in the entire office. The mahogany desk, and every painstakingly assembled filing cabinet was destroyed, and George twirled his wand powerfully and shouted _Deprimo!_

A powerful hurricane-esque wind circled through the entire office, papers ripping everywhere and swirling about into a horrible mess. A couple well placed _Flagrate_ and _Incendio_ charms later, and a proper bonfire was raging in the Minister's office. They replicated the destruction in the Office of the Advisor to the Minister of Magic, Office of the Senior Undersecretary, and the Junior Assistant's Office before placing one of their new and improved Portable Swamp's in the entryway. Fred smirked; the Committee on Experimental Charms would have a field day with that one, Flitwick had taken fifteen hours to remove it a few months ago.

They took a slight detour in Level One, blasting their way into the wall between the Minister's office and the Undersecretary's, blowing a hole into the Ministry water main that descended above from Muggle London. George and Fred emptied one of their favorite inventions into the main, a powder that transfigured water into alcohol, and convinced anyone who drank the water that they were dehydrated and parched, a vicious cycle that ended only when the drinker passed out, or drowned. The Ministry would have to flush the entire system to eliminate the effects, and Fred was confident everyone who eventually made it into the Ministry today would be more blacked than a bum on a whiskey drunk.

George checked the time, and figured they had about ten minutes left before the rush of wizards showed up, the Aurors among them.

"Time to cause some damage, Fred," he said with as evil a smile as had ever graced a Weasley face, and the two pressed the Level 2 button in the elevator, Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

It wasn't that he hated the DMLE so much as he hated their incompetence. They well and truly sucked at defending the lives of their fellow witches and wizards, and the arrogance most possessed was a far cry from their true calling as defenders of the citizens of magical Britain. Narcissism and unbridled ambition were such obstructions to societal success, pondered George thoughtfully, especially when embedded into the culture of the police force.

Fred and George walked out of the lift, passing the Wizengamot Administration Services Office and the Improper Use of Magic Office before stopping at the closed heavy oak doors, behind which lay the Auror Department.

"I'll show you Improper Use of Magic," said George with a laugh.

With two simultaneous blasting curses Fred and George Weasley imploded the oak doors, splinters of wood crashing into the Auror HQ and raining down on the desks and cubicles inside.

A startled yell from inside alerted them to the fact at least one Auror was inside. Fred cast a quick detection charm, finding another Auror running away from the burning door, and towards a quick get-away. Fred twisted and apparated to the back of the Department, cutting off the Auror's escape, hoping for a quick end to the duel and an extension of their time undetected within the Ministry. Fred exchanged spellfire with the Auror in quick succession, before an Impedimenta Jinx allowed him to stun his foe. Fred snapped his wand in half and tied him up with a chain curse before running to assist his brother. After a flurry of spells from two different directions, one of George's transfigured iron spikes eventually penetrated the Auror's bunker shield, slamming into his shoulder, simultaneously lifting and spinning the Auror up in the air, where gravity took over and crashed him to the ground.

"No hit-wizards on duty?" asked Fred wryly.

"That's a damn shame. You could've used the workout," said George with a smile, before casting a stunning spell straight to the shrieking Aurors face. He snapped the unconscious wizard's wand, and then the twins set about systematically destroying the Auror Department.

The twins placed themselves in the middle of the room, back to back, and began to each cast a spellchain of destructive magic all around the Department. Everything their magic touched exploded, case files, desks, profiling diagrams, dark detectors, everything disappearing into thousands of piecemeal fragments. Once the entire room was utterly disintegrated, Fred swirled his wand about and gathered the remnants into a pile, while George opened his bottomless bag and pulled out a large jar labeled DANGEROUS. He carefully levitated the jar above the pile of ruins the Auror Department had become, and then dumped the entire contents of hydrofluoric acid on top of the mound.

Fred could feel as the magical bonds that held the matter together vanished, burned away into oblivion by the caustic acid. He smiled a smug smile, confident every file and every lead the DMLE had on any wizard in England was burning away rapidly in front of his very eyes. Once the acid had eaten through the entire carbon collection, burned through the wood floor, and started bubbling the stone away underneath the floor, George performed a picturesque _Evanesco_ and vanished the remains, leaving the two unconscious Aurors on the bare ground of what was formerly the Auror Department.

They had decided last night to bypass the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophies, Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Department of Magical Cooperation, Department of Magical Transportation, and the Department of Magical Games and Sports; the modified Whiz-bangs they'd unleashed would cause enough chaos as was, and those departments weren't their targets. The twins stepped into the elevator for their final descent, and Fred pressed the Level 9 button, for the Department of Mysteries. With a clang the elevator doors shut, and they shot down like a bullet, the cage rattling as it descended into the depths of the Ministry.

To where they hoped to find their best friend.

Fred pulled from his bag a point-me charm modification, that they'd charmed with blood magic, looking almost like an American Indian dream catcher. Undeniably illegal, but unquestionably effective, they had a precious droplet of Harry's blood to make the enchantment work.

The elevator slammed down on Level 9 and the doors whooshed open, revealing a plain corridor done in black brick, hints of grey and blue in their edges. The twins stepped out, and George pulled a vial from his bag. With the utmost delicacy, George squeezed a single drop of Harry's blood into the center of the charms construct. Green light began emanating from it moments later, and the second George said, "Point me to Harry Potter," the arrow in the center swung around lightning fast, quivering as it pointed straight down the hallway to the black entrance door of the Department of Mysteries.

George look accusingly at his brother. "This seems almost too easy."

Fred was laughing with deranged glee. "It's Harry's blood! And our charms-work! It can't be wrong, he's in there." He laughed again, "Bloody brilliant we are mate!"

"Brilliant, yes, but never known for our caution. Now we know where he is, do we risk giving up our informational edge? We should talk to Bill, get his expertise..."

Fred's face turned to stone at the suggestion. "Harry's in there, I'm going in there, it's that fucking simple, and the only question is, are you coming?" He turned from his twin brother and strode down the hallway to the DOM entrance.

George silently acquiesced and made his way to the door, blueish white light from the torches on the wall glinting off their dragon-hide armor. Fred slid his gloved hands around the cool door handle, and pulled, the door swinging outwards without a sound, and swallowing the twins as they entered the Entrance Chamber. Anti-apparation, and a whole host of other wards washed over them as the door closed behind, adding to the foreboding feeling now coursing through George's veins.

The highly polished floor of the Department of Mysteries shimmered as the twelve doors of the Entrance Chamber swirled around the Weasley twins. It wasn't like they even knew which room was which, with all the doors unmarked, but the Entrance Room was enchanted to do a job, and it did it well. The spinning stopped after a few tumultuous moments, and it looked exactly the same as when they'd walked in moments before.

"Fred?" said George shakily.

"What?"

"What's up with that?" asked George, pointing to the blood-magic point me construct. What Fred saw stunned him – the arrow was spinning counter-clockwise in a lazy circle over and over again, and there was no green light shining throughout. It looked like the enchantment was completely defunct.

"That's not good," said Fred, the hairs on his neck prickling.

"So, help me out here.. he's in the Department of Mysteries? But not in any of the rooms that make it up? This is the entrance room, even Unspeakables use this to navigate around."

Fred didn't respond to his brother. His mind was rapidly running through game scenarios, and none of the answers he was coming up with ended with a positive outcome.

"Fuck me running. I can't think of anything..." stammered Fred, struck motionless. It didn't make any sense, and what precious time they had left was slipping away.

"This doesn't make any bloody sense! Fuck!"

The twins stood there, their minds circling. After staring upwards for half a minute, knowing that alarms would shortly be going off at every level of the Ministry, Fred stared down at the ground, it's shimmering looking almost like the edge of a bubble when it captures the sun. Something about that sheen...

"It's a multiverse. Has to be, that's the only way,"

George put his hands to his face and rubbed vigorously. "Fuck off"

"The blood magic can't sense him because he's not in our universe. And the only way he's not in our universe, is if the DOM is a multiverse. We need to be looking for an inter-dimensional doorway."

"What the fuck are you talking about," deadpanned George to his brother.

"We're out of time, gotta deal with the hand we've been dealt."

"An inter-dimensional doorway! Fucking bollocks mate! How's that the hand we've been dealt?"

"It's the only bloody thing that makes sense. Hear me out. Muggle string theory concludes that our universe formed when two extra-dimensional membranes collided. That would be a common occurrence, so in string theory there's lots of universes within a multiverse. And each one acts like a bubble, bumping into each other occasionally, but all matter within is confined within a universal membrane." said Fred.

George looked at his twin like he was deranged. "Why'd the blood magic work before, and not now?"

Fred paused to collect his thoughts for a moment. "Before we entered, the entire Department and all the matter inside of it was concentrated behind this door, including whatever number of universes exist in here, and all their matter to boot. The point-me spell is rather elementary, but it was undeniably correct that from where we were standing, the closest way to Harry was through the door. But the moment we entered that door, we opened ourselves up to the other planes of existence, and Harry doesn't exist on this universal plane. He's in another universe, and the only way for us to get there is through an inter-dimensional doorway between universes."

George looked at his brother like he was crazy. "But why can't the spell sense your bloody doorway from in here?"

Fred shrugged his shoulders. "Either the doorway itself is spelled untraceable, possibly a Fidelus, or there's more to the Department of Mysteries than just these few rooms."

"Well that's just bloody fantastic! What do we do?"

"Get out of here, we're not prepared for this," said Fred, changing his mind and wishing he's listened to his brother before striding in here like he owned the place. He immediately asked the DOM to open up an exit.

The door should've appeared, and it should've led back to the Ministry. Instead, the room remained motionless, as if it were waiting for something.

Goosebumps traveled down his arms and legs, and he got the feeling that the room itself were sentient.

"Don't say it!" said Fred, angrily.

"I mean it, don't you dare say it!" he continued.

George licked his suddenly dry lips, and swallowed audibly.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"FUCK!" Fred wasted no time running to one of the random dozen doors leading from the central room, his wand out. He pulled at the door, and was surprised when the door opened.

George was further surprised, when a flash of purple light illuminated his brother's body, and Fred was blasted back into the center of the room, his dragonscale armor scraping across the ground, purple lights streaking like lightning all over his chest.

George immediately set his feet in a defensive posture, his wand out and pointing at the open door, bunker shield charm on his lips, as his brother scrambled to his feet, his dragonscale armor with a scorch mark across the chest.

The door closed without anyone coming through, and then the room spun itself into a frenzy, disorienting the Weasley twins.

"You alright?" asked George when the room finally stopped spinning.

"Top fucking notch!" snarled Fred, turning in slow circles, realizing the vulnerable position they'd ended up in, what with a circular room and a dozen doors evenly spaced in a circle around them.

"Who was that?"

"Unspeakables! They know we're here!"

"No sense staying put then!" George cast his most powerful bunker shield charm, and approached one of the other doors, his brother right behind him. Fred conjured a levitating metal hand, and used it to open the door in front of them.

Spellfire immediately splashed off of George's bunker shield, but he wasn't one of Harry Potters Generals for nothing, pushing forward and reinforcing the shield, allowing his brother to advance unimpeded by defensive spell work. They found themselves in the Death Chamber, at the top of the stone tiers that led down to the dais on which stood the Veil as the door closed behind them.

The moment it did, George cut off his shield, and both twins exploded into action, hurling curses at the two Unspeakables, their faces a dark shadow, robes swirling as they cast defensive shields, swatting away the Weasley curses to splash harmlessly on the walls. They returned fire, the first spell from one of their wands a dangerous _Imperio _George narrowly avoided.

"_Magnosa_!" shouted Fred, shooting a plume of magma at the Unspeakable. George quickly ran through a set of five banishing charms at the other wizard, sending blunt instruments and sharp weapons at the speed of sound into the yellow shield the wizard had cast over himself. The last broke the shield into a thousand dissipating fragments, and the next instant Fred switched targets and landed a Confundus Hex, followed immediately by George's Bludgeoner aimed straight at the Unspeakable's head. It connected, and they heard the loud crack of the unknown assailant's neck being snapped. He collapsed as if marionette ropes that help up his limbs had been suddenly cut.

George cast a shield to intercept the former Unspeakable's counter, a bronze elemental curse his EAE Shield was made for, redirecting it sideways before both twins unleashed a powerful barrage of hexes and curses, overwhelming the defenses of their sole opponent. Fred landed a powerful cutting curse to the chest, and a stunning spell finished the job.

"Obliviate the other one, George!"

"Righto!"

Duel finished, memories cleansed, the twins stared around the Death Chamber.

He could hear whispers from the Veil, fluttering with a magic wind no one every felt, an ominous testament to the last centuries of wizarding judgment.

"Any way to punch through the wards, Fred?"

"Maybe if we do it together?"

Fred summoned up his magic in a concentrated ball, and formed a metaphysical spear with it, while George envisioned a giant hammer. They attempted to apparate, and when their supersonic magical essences crashed into the wards embedded into the room, reality itself shimmered before two deep gong sounds echoed and the twins were thrown backwards, landing heavily on the stone steps of the Death Room.

After knocking the cobwebs from their heads, the twins quickly conferred and decided their best bet was to return to the central room and transfer the central apparation ward.

Both twins cast their bunker shields once again, their pyramid shape allowing for a shield with one of the highest chances of deflecting curses, and moved towards the exit.

They opened the door and moved quietly forward, eyes flickering all around as they entered again, finding no one in the shimmering room with a dozen doors. When the door closed, the chamber spun around again, shimmering lights and whizzing doors circling the twins at breakneck speed.

When it all settled, Fred pulled a last ditch item from his bottomless bag, one of their brother's Class 2 Ward-Drains, carved in a single Amethyst crystal. It had been brought along for a worst-case scenario, but Fred wasn't sure it was powerful enough to aid in their escape.

While George kept a look out for anyone entering the Chamber, Fred activated the Ward-Drain to target the apparation wards surrounding the Department of Mysteries. Purple and blue light exploded from the construct, designed to open a hole by setting itself as a new focal point for the wards to latch onto. The light began swirling around, magic separating from the walls and descending like a whirlpool, sparks of purple and silver magic stretching from old runic lines to the new, powerful focal point.

"It's working!" shouted Fred, as his magic sensed the ward draining.

"We've got company!" shouted George back, just as every one of the twelve doors in the Entrance Room opened up, and Unspeakables stepped through them.

When they shut moments later, twenty four Unspeakables cloaked in shadow unsheathed their wands and pointed them at Fred and George.

The tension elevated immediately as both groups regarded each other warily. On one side, some of the most knowledgeable and competent wizards in all of England.

And the other, heroes responsible for the death of Lord Voldemort and more Death Eaters than all the Unspeakables combined. Adrenaline began coursing through George's body.

"We just need one minute," he whispered to Fred, who responded admirably.

"Jeremy Pritchard! Liam Higgins! Johnny Morrissey! Tom Oakridge! Ian Macalister! We fought and bled beside you! We liberated England from Voldemort! And you're standing by, watching as another oppression takes hold!"

No one made a move, but a few Unspeakables made subtle moves into dueling stances, bracing their legs, and readying their wands.

George knew a fight when he saw one, but against twenty four wizards who possessed a burning desire to learn all that magic was capable of? The realization he might not walk away from this one became more real.

The ward drain continued to siphon off the apparation wards from the Department of Mysteries, lines of purple and silver cracking impressively and arching down from the ceiling to the Ward-Drain.

"Your orders are to defend the Ministry from all enemies! Not only foreign wizards, but traitors in the Wizengamot! The Minister's avarice has grown too large!" Fred pleaded, his voice emotional, his body steadfast, showing a resolute determination in the righteousness of his actions.

"Treason!" shouted one of the Unspeakables, and Fred swiveled to point his wand in that fucker's direction. If they attacked, he'd be one of the first.

"Treason is how corrupt the Ministry has become, while you've stood by and allowed it! You, some of the greatest wizards this generation has produced!"

One of the wizards stepped forward, and spoke with an unrecognizable voice. "Weasley's! Our magical scans show you under the influence of the Imperius! Cease and desist immediately, or you will be forced to!"

"Imperiused? You're fucking barmy!"

"Mad as a hatter!" added Fred. "The Ministry has Harry Potter imprisoned, and he's somewhere in the Department of Mysteries! We have the evidence to prove it!"

Fred threw the blood construct they'd assembled at one of the Unspeakables.

"Just put down your wands and we can show you! He's in here!"

The Unspeakable maintained his discipline and composure. "Drop your wands immediately or consider yourself enemies of the Ministry!"

"Enemies? I fought a war with you bastards!" yelled George, as he began to methodically enhance the flow of his magical core to his extremities, boosting his response power.

"We need a revolution!" yelled Fred, spit flying from his mouth as he exploded in anger. "The stagnation of our society will be the death of it!"

The entire room erupted in spellfire, though a few Unspeakables chose not to fire, their stances pensive as they considered the Weasley twins' words. The twins cast identical yellow shields, small concentrated squares at the end of their wands, and they used their impressive beater skills to bat away the first two volleys aimed directly at the Ward-Drain.

As the first round of curses rebounded to the walls and ceiling of the entrance room, the Ward-Drain snapped the last of the apparation ward lines down into the focal point, humming lines of purple and silver arching from their Ministry focal points to the Class 2 Ward-Drain, locked in position, and freeing the Weasley twins from the clutches of the Department of Mysteries.

George and Fred apparated away immediately, twisting on their heels and vanishing down their respective wormholes, fleeing the Ministry.

The reality holds from the Department melted off him as he sped through the wormhole, reaching his entire essence towards the apparation ending, doing his best to speed up what was already a lightning fast magical ability. But as he reached his destination, and felt reality itself fold over to welcome him into it, everything stopped.

For a brief second, the entire wormhole, normally a swirling vortex of colors and matter, turned into a gorgeous painting, reality frozen in place, George clutched in its glue-like grasp. Then with an almighty wrench, the reality in front of him disintegrated, and he felt himself pulled backwards, colors whirling about as he slammed back into the black ground of the Department of Ministry's Entrance Chamber.

Fred reappeared at exactly the same time from where they'd apparated from, the strands of their failed traveling magic unraveling around them as fading gossamer strands of light. George immediately put up a shield, intercepting the newest barrage of curses, and Fred did the same, though both men had a look of sheer terror on their faces.

Backed into a corner, with no escape other than fighting, the Weasley twins engaged the Unspeakables in a no holds barred duel, to what they now assumed was to the death. Some of the darkest curses they knew were being hurled at them indiscriminately, and George welcomed his darker side to the forefront in order to respond in kind.

George wandlessly summoned from his bag the metal daggers he'd coated with basilisk poison. He waited as Fred brought out his second wand and cast a split magical attack, watching as eight Unspeakables raised changed shields to intercept the transfiguration hex Fred split, the curse from two wands diverging to eight streams of magic.

George banished the daggers straight at the hoods of the figures, and was rewarded as four of the eight failed to raise their shields to intercept the physical attack. With a grim acceptance, George knew some of his former friends could have been any of the wizards he'd attacked, and those four were as good as dead, their bodies jerking limbs and agonized screams as the basilisk poison ended their life.

Spellfire glanced off shields as the twins ran dueling routes honed from years of battling Death Eaters, their spells and curses matching the best the Unspeakables could offer. The Unspeakables broke into groups and began shifting their movements as well, like a pack of wolves wearing down their prey. After their madcap wanderer route failed to penetrate the closing Venus Fly Trap formation, Fred and George found themselves pinned down in a corner of the room, full Masterclass shields intercepting the ridiculous number of direct hits being fired upon them, weakening with every hit. Soon the numbers became too much, and Fred's shield exploded into a hundred colorful fragments that dissipated immediately.

Within seconds George saw Fred get hit by a curse, a sickly green monstrosity with three circling sections. Dragon scales burst and scattered around the ground they were defending, his left side smoking, dragon scales fused into his flesh. With a cry matching the anguish in his twin's voice, George redoubled his firing rate, switching to a spell chain of the nastiest curses he knew. He nailed three Unspeakables with a Bill Weasley special, a Plague curse that bypassed their defenses they cast the wrong shield, all of them falling with hideous shrieks and blood pouring out of their mouths and eyes. Fred, gasping in agony, pulled out one of Harry's favorite spells, a heat seeking lightning curse that jumped from wizard to wizard, the numbers afflicted varying by the strength of the wizard's casting. Fred put every bit of his magical strength into the spell, and the flash of lightning, part purple, blue, and white, seared the flesh of six Unspeakables, their robes catching fire, spasms jolting their limbs as lethal amounts of electricity coursed through their veins.

George never saw who cast the _Crucio_ curse on him; one second he was battling, the next excruciating pain wracked his entire body with spasms, his mouth biting down so hard he bit clean through his tongue, wand clattering to the ground as he fell twitching.

When the curse was lifted, George opened his eyes to see his brother bound in ropes, stunned and unconscious.

"You murderous cunt! I'll fucking kill you!" screamed the closest Unspeakable, as dragon-hide boots slammed into his ribs over and over again.

His eyes were open, and George saw three of the eleven remaining wizards cancel the enchantments shrouding their faces in darkness. He saw the jagged outline of Higgins' jaw, Oakridge's beard, and Macalister's hooked nose, looking on mournfully as he was beaten.

He couldn't bring himself to give a single fuck that they were still alive.

George managed to scream a final "FUCK YOU!" to every wizard surrounding him, before a bright red flash straight to his face sent him directly to his troubled dreams.

– – – – –

The grey nothingness grew brighter and lighter until Fred finally opened his eyes. His eyes adjusted to his gloomy surroundings gradually, determining he was in a Ministry holding cell.

To his left he found his brother, still passed out, wearing a Ministry approved prisoner's outfit. He had one on too it seemed, matching the twenty by ten cell he was in, with a single door and toilet the only amenity to speak of.

Then it all came rushing back, every painful bruise in his body swelling up, his ribs and spine creaking with bone contusions. A sense of great disappointment rushed through his heart, and stayed there, nursing his depression. "Checkmate," he said to himself mournfully.

After a few minutes of desolate grimness, he enervated his brother, who came to with a wild glare in his eyes. After he'd taken in his prisoner's outfit, his face too fell, resigned to the facts of their imprisonment.

"We fucked up, didn't we?"

"No, I did," said Fred mournfully. "I should've listened to you."

"I didn't try to stop you," said George pointedly. "How long have we been out?"

"No idea, I just woke up."

Twelve hours of restless silence later, the twins finally heard faint footsteps.

Their first visitor was none other than the Minister of Magic. The entire door and wall were dispelled, turning into a two way mirror, with Rufus Scrimgeour and Vernachy Debutanya standing side by side.

"Good evening, Weasley's."

Here was the man responsible for all their misery. The man responsible for betraying them after the final battle. Fred and George's eyes were frost cold, sharp gazes of subdued fury.

Scrimgeour conjured two chairs within the prison cell and motioned for them to sit, but both Fred and George remained standing. Fred leaned against the far wall as nonchalantly as possible, and George stood steadfast with his arms crossed, as if only his self restraint and not the barrier were all that was stopping him from throttling the smug Minister.

The Minister plastered up two papers on the mirrored barrier. The first was the parchment on which the Weasley's had printed their pictures of the Ministry graffiti, and the second was an issue of the latest Daily Prophet.

"I have to commend you two, firstly. This," he said, tapping their letter, with his wand, "was quite the revelation. Ensuring every witch and wizard in England received a copy? Highly inconvenient. You've been the talk of England the last few days, gentleman. And not just amongst the ignorant populace, no, far from it. 13 dead Unspeakables? I'd charge you with war crimes, if you weren't war heroes. The public wouldn't stand for it."

"And therein lies the rub. How to explain what's recently occurred? Our current conundrum, this bamboozling enigma?" Scrimgeour tapped the Prophet, then looked the Weasley twins in the eyes. "I believe I've found the answer," he deadpanned, before proceeding to pull another Prophet from his robes and reading from the front page.

"English Heroes Imperiused by Death Eaters," he read with an evil smile. "Death and destruction reigned at the Ministry yesterday morning as Harry Potter's Generals caused destruction not seen since Voldemort attacked the Ministry, and the highest single day death count of Ministry personnel ever."

Clearing his throat, Scrimgeour continued, "This is my favorite part. Pay attention. Fred and George Weasley were Imperiused, and cannot be held responsible for their terrible actions. They will be spending the next month in first-class Ministry care while they recover from multiple curses, horrific wounds, and the mental anguish suffered as they became unwilling victims in the last Death Eater attack. The Ministry Hit Wizard Squad took only hours to track down the offending Death Eaters, thought to be the last of Voldemort's sycophants alive. All were killed in action, and their bodies will be on display at the Ministry for the full duration of the Weasley's recovery."

Scrimgeour stopped talking and simply stared at them, waiting for a reaction.

"Where'd you find the Death Eaters?" said George dryly.

"Used a few we picked up from the Last Battle," Scrimgeour said nonchalantly.

"They're never going to believe you over us."

"They already have. Today we released 2 million Galleons seized from Death Eater accounts to the Ministry Public Housing Project, rebuilding homes for the victims and widows of the war. Public support for the Ministry has risen 20% in the last five days alone. You're old news, Weasley's."

Scrimgeour sensed their seething anger, and hit his point home.

"I'm most partial to the conclusion of the article. Let me read it to you. Those who sow seeds of discord at a time of our greatest unity and strength will be eliminated! The forces of division shall not triumph against us! These truths we learned from the Weasley twins, heroes of unparalleled valor who fought when others did not, and risked everything they had to destroy the dark wizards who threatened England. By destroying the last Death Eaters, we continue in that glorious and righteous path, while anticipating a swift and full recovery for the Weasley's."

Rufus looked up, a satisfied gleam in his eyes. "It remains to be seen how much discord you've sown with your printing run, and whether the enemies I've now made will do anything about it. But judging by yesterday's polling, our story seems to be holding up well enough in the bars. An uncomplicated story for a more simple kind of wizard."

Scrimgeour clasped his arms underneath his chest, staring at one twin, then the other.

"You can, of course, continue with your treason. Judging by the kill count, you are hellbent on ensuring my removal from office. I'll say it straight, then, no sugar. You have no allies, and if you insist on perpetuating your libel against me, I will have you killed, heroes or not."

Scrimgeour vanished the chairs he'd conjured.

"If you want out before the month's done, I'll have a wizard's oath from the both of you that you'll cease these unruly actions. If not, enjoy the next four weeks of the Ministry's hospitality."

Fred flipped the Minister the bird, and George turned his back to him in response. As the Minister's footsteps finally faded away, George exploded, screaming in agony and disgust. He began punching the wall as hard as he could, over, and over, and over again, until blood ran down his hands and bloodstains marred the walls, his hands making wet pulpy sounds as the connected with the concrete.

Fred remained motionless, convinced he could find a way out of their predicament, running his mind in circles along already well-worn pathways he knew led to failure.

The day turned to night, and the nights turned into days.

– – – – –

The windows of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes were tinted black, opaque to the outside world and full of mystery. Once inside, the store was filled to the brim with newly stocked shelves of the twins' latest inventions. The back door behind the counter led the way to their first storage room, carefully stocked with front merchandise, special orders from the Ministry, and private orders from wizarding families due to be flooed out tomorrow. Two fireplaces jutted from one of the walls, one for people and the other for ordered packages.

In the very back of the storage room of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes, almost unnoticeable to the trained eye, was a doorway. It was no ordinary doorway, however, but a magical one, created by yours truly, Fred and George Weasley.

With the help of their curse-breaking brother Bill, Professor Flitwick, and their own charms genius, the twins were creating a generational invention, the warding doorway. Production was quite a distance from market yet, but the prototype on display at the back of the storage room was fully spelled to protect the Weasley twins' secrets and newest inventions. In the near future, it would allow wizarding families to bypass the immensely overpriced and haughty warding firms competing in a monopolized market.

The average wizard and witch lacked the resources to hire a warding firm, and even if they managed to scrounge up enough galleons to pay, only trained curse-breakers could distinguish between a completed job and a haphazardly strung up set a group of experienced curse breakers could bring down in minutes. There was no system of checks and balances for warding firms, allowing them to easily fraud families. What the twins had cooked up was a way to sell their doorways to wizarding homes for a much lower price and basic warding setup, and have the families order the excess protections they'd like included in them.

Professor Flitwick had toppled his diminutive self off a table when the Weasley's had first shown him their prototype. He loved everything to do with charms, and the Weasley Twins' Portable Swamp had originally sparked his interest in their inventing skills. The twins had managed to create glass-orbs that absorbed a single ward essence and anchored it to the door when placed in the corresponding half circles on the door. It hadn't taken much time to get Professor Flitwick throwing ideas around as well, and they were currently testing out the equivalent of spell bombs; they hadn't quite gotten the direction down, however; the spells shot out in random directions whenever thrown, instead of targeting specific targets.

Bill had refined the twins' idea of tying constructed wards and charms into the orbs, and opening up the possibility of defensive capabilities. The doorway that protected the secrets of the Weasley's eccentric inventions was the first partially completed Weasley Warding Orbway, and Bill had spent hundreds of research hours creating wards and tying them into the orbs, completing a doorway that absorbed the orb-spells and immediately set-up what they contained, channeling the magic and securing it.

Eventually Bill had managed the breakthrough they were looking for, and tied an Orb-_Fidelus_ charm to the doorway. He'd promptly forgot about its existence, and Fred and George had immediately pretended they couldn't remember where the doorway was either, occluding their minds and cursing Bill, who was apologizing profusely and waving his wand about like a lunatic attempting to bypass the _Fidelus_. Ten minutes later, after hanging his head in shame and allowing his brothers to voraciously chew him out, George had waved his wand surreptitiously in the air. The fiery words that emerged said, "_Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes Secret and Most Ingenious Laboratory Can Be Found Through the 1st Warding Doorway of the Storage Room_."

Fred quickly whipped out a magical camera and snapped a picture of Bill's open-mouthed expression before the curse-breaker spent five furious minutes dueling his younger brothers. They had laughed uproariously, tears of mirth streaming down their faces as they failed to block silent jinxes, and spectacularly failed to shield against hexes from some of the more obscure tombs Bill had raided. They hadn't been successful, but the twins didn't mind running their business for an entire day wearing ancient erotic Egyptian dresses. The picture of Bill had been completely worth it, captured forever for reminiscing.

Inside the Orbway was a giant room of chaotic simplicity. There were fifty cauldrons on one side of the room, spaced like a chess set, with all types of potions ingredients on huge shelves behind the cauldrons. Everyone was bubbling and frothing, some mixture inside its depths, each potion some small part of a Weasley experiment or production item. Self-stirring spoons dipped into the potions, moved around, came back out, and were immediately cleaned of potion residue and placed right back into their place. Ingredients floated from workstation to cauldron, every movement carefully monitored by seven overzealous house elves, running back and forth across the room in controlled chaos, following some carefully structured combination of orders given to them by their masters.

Little rooms with doors suitable for house elves were strung together on the other side of the room, with the house elves occasionally running in and out, testing new products, cleaning up after potions spills, miss-fired spells, and experiments gone wrong. Each elf wore a red headband, signifying themselves as Weasley house-elves, and workers in Fred and George's factory. Their constant chatter and quick minds were suited perfectly to the twins and their ingenious ways, thought the Weasley's had attempted everything they could to chip away at the propriety the elves possessed. Years of work had changed them from scolding grandparents to fun loving, mischievous, and occasionally scolding grandparents. The house-elves loved the Weasley's, and the twins had found the perfect workforce to help them produce their brilliant inventions.

At the back of the room was the personal inventing station of Fred and George, elevated from the work floor by a five meter double staircase. Tables within the enclosure were filled with drawings, various instruments hummed and emitted different colors of smoke, and schematics of their latest thoughts littered the area.

There were many great wizarding discoveries and rare spells that had helped the group throughout the war, but the twins' greatest invention, the one that truly allowed them to oppose the forces of evil, jutted out imposingly from the wall. It was a giant globe of the entire world, suspended metallic rings emblazoned with runes circling the entire surface of the world, with four screens behind it.

The twins, Neville, and Harry Potter had spent hours discussing the magical world at great length, spending countless nights talking frankly of pureblood prejudices, the preservation of magic, muggleborn representation, the history of the magical world, pureblood history, and the supposed post-Voldemort future. Hermione Granger, before she'd died, had been the madwoman behind the arithmancy. Where once were mischievous twins now were dangerous magicians, smart businessmen, and gifted enchanters, and Fred and George had used their gifted potions and charms skills to imbue magical essences into the runes and charm them to the arithmetic equations Hermione had invented. Neville had provided all the magical plant essences they'd required.

The machine creaked and made odd explosions with funny colors when it activated, but only because the twins felt it added character to the device. The globe was imbued with Harry Potter's sense of justice and equality, and the Globe would activate to inform them where they needed to be to continue their vision of how English magical society should be restructured. The artificial intelligence required to ensure the machine wasn't corruptible had fallen to Hermione, and she had slaved for over a year on the machine until Harry himself felt it was accurate.

With the Weasley twins in holding cells, and the elves gone for the day, no one witnessed the machine come to life. There were four giant screens directly behind the globe, and each was currently focused wherever the twins wanted their Invisible Iyes to be.

All of a sudden the screens went black and then turned into a giant map of the world. One rune-inscribed rune-band on the giant globe began creaking its way around the surface of the globe, giving audible clicks and a puff of colored smoke for each rune it passed over. The other arms started creaking forwards or backwards, and soon the entire globe was in motion. One by one the screens began to change as each armband abruptly stopped and the machine creaked loudly, the proper rune flaring up in a golden light.

With one click the four screens re-centered over Europe, and with another, the Mediterranean. Each emitted golden rune zoomed the giant wall screen closer, until the city of Rome emerged from Italy's outline.

The screen was a real-time camera system, enabled by the enchantment of a dead snitch's wings, the tail feathers of a white Phoenix, and the back hair of a Demiguise. With some nifty experimental charms the twins had invented the perfect spying and informations system. It could apparate and levitate to anyplace in the entire world, even enabling the viewer to examine an area under the _Fidelus_ charm, as the map displayed every ward, charm, and magical protection the twins' many wizarding acquaintances knew. Bill Weasley had gathered some of his most brilliant curse-breaker friends and convinced them to cast their most elaborate warding systems, certain colors dedicated to specific protective wards.

Another golden rune lit up the air around the globe, and the entire system stopped moving, creaking and groaning the support structure emerging from the wall. The four screens had zoomed in on a dreary, dilapidated house on a nondescript street. A specially designed quill burst into life and began writing down on a piece of parchment, spelling out the words, "Thomas and Joseph Duncan: St. Josephine's Orphanage, 4318 Rosemary Ave, Rome, Italy."

– – – – –

Foster the Wizards


	4. In Through the Out Door

In Through the Out Door

The straight line of orphans standing still at attention made not a single sound. The doors to the mess hall were a tall stout oak, and they were firmly shut. Waiting was a game the Mother liked to play.

Orphans were made for work; it's what God had put them here on this Earth for, and when they were done with working, they were supposed to wait. Because unless they were adopted by some magical stroke of luck, the orphans would be waiting until they reached their majority. Therefore, the Mother felt that waiting built strength of character.

And so, at the clock's stroke of 6 PM, all the orphans were silently waiting in line outside of the imposing oak doors, darkness looming over their frail frames and watering mouths. Dinner was the only meal worth mentioning at St. Josephine's; the only meat they saw during the entire day, and occasionally they'd even get butter with their rolls. It was truly a delicacy, and missing dinner was a rare occurrence only ever caused by sickness.

As one the giant doors slammed open, crashing against the walls to either side of their frames. The orphans immediately began marching into the mess hall, their steps striking as one, resounding against the cold stone floor. The single line separated into two that lined up across either side of a fifty-foot long table. As the orphans stopped in front of their dinner plates and glasses of water, all opened up their mouths to pray.

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and Earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen." The chorus of boys and girls fell silent, and dinner began.

Upon sitting, voices tentatively picked up across the giant meal room as the orphans engaged in conversation, telling the day's stories and gossip, random bits of information being exchanged for the meager price of food and friendship.

Thomas Duncan remembered many nights beginning like this, tortuous nights that began with the promise of a meal and ended in tired muscles, broken bones, and pent up anger. There was always anger in this place. Every night was exactly the same; he'd sit down at his plate, directly across from his twin brother Joey Duncan. Neither remembered anything of before they'd come to the orphanage, but they were twins. They knew that much, and the bond between the brothers was strong. Thomas only wished something could be done about the hell he was living in.

Joey Duncan shifted his eyes around, narrowing them in dislike as he spotted the Ferrets. They were a group of orphans who'd lost the will to truly live, and he despised them. They'd ferret out the dirtiest secrets from every orphan, and acted like a miniature police force doing the Mother's bidding when she wasn't present.

He looked up at the front table where the Mother and her assorted guests were seated, and widened his eyes slightly when he didn't see her. She'd been missing sporadically over the last months, and Joey decided to pray an extra prayer tonight. He'd pray that God would smite her from his life. He'd pray that God would choose to strike her down with furious anger to the hell she must've sprung from. He didn't know if he'd ever hated someone before the orphanage, but he hated the Mother with his entire soul.

"Don't be staring up there like you miss the old woman," said Thomas, ripping out a chunk of roll with his teeth.

"Nah, I'm just daydreaming. Figuring which way I'd kill the hag if I could." Joey began tearing into his meat; with any luck he'd been in the freezer again tonight, and he needed something in him to protect from the cold. The orphans that surrounded the twins tonight were talking quietly, and the twins paid them little heed. "What ya workin' on tonight?"

"Roof-duty. Mother wants it re-tarred," said Thomas. The work wasn't the problem for Thomas; it was the problem of being assigned with the Ferret's that concerned him. He hadn't gotten into the scrapes like his brother had, but he didn't think he'd caught the Mother's attention in any positive way. He just didn't want the Freezer. Thoughts of the cold got him shivering just thinking about it. The boys lapsed into a minutes-long silence as they finished their meal, and conversation didn't return until a sickly boy with dirty blonde hair crept right behind Joey.

"Joey? Um… I just… thought, you… you… you should know…" stammered the boy, nicknamed Bee Bee for his affliction.

"Spit it out Bee, I haven't got all day!" The twins didn't really like the boy, but apparently he liked them, and they weren't about to disengage themselves from a follower who helped them out on occasion.

"S…Ss…Ssss….Sorry, Joey. The… the Fff… Ffff… the Ferrets found out… they found… abou… ab… abou… shit! She found out about the painting." Bee Bee had his head down, and looked around abruptly as if realizing where he was before fleeing back towards his spot down the table six spaces.

"You're gonna get it Joey!" yelled a Ferret from down the line, and the whole group began cackling.

The back door by the head table burst open with tremendous force and in flowed the Mother in all her hideous splendor. She was a tall, willowy woman, her arms taut, a testament to the many whippings and beatings she'd performed over the years at St. Josephine's. The straight black hair adorning her head was pulled back into a stout bun, and her face had lines of malice etched forever into a once-beautiful face. Black stockings with black shoes combined with a simply cut black dress completed the woman the orphans had long learned to fear.

"Did you think you could get away with it, you little miscreant! You filthy little swine!" Spittle flew from the enraged Mother's mouth, and even Thomas was surprised at the black hate that filled the depths of her eyes. She was a veritable thundercloud, her eyes crackling with intensity as she marched down the table line.

She grabbed Joey's shirt back and hauled him from the table. She walked just fast enough that he couldn't keep up and he ended up tripping over his small feet as he was drug out past the doors of the mess hall. Her crazed mutterings faded away as she disappeared with Joey, leaving Thomas gaping in her wake and a few orphans throwing him apologetic glances.

Two hours later on top of the orphanage a summer's breeze blew over the rooftop. The Ferrets and Thomas were halfway done re-tarring the roof, and his muscles were burning with constant use. The mop he was using had long increased its weight from the tar, and the fierce heat from the boiling substance caused sweat to run down his entire body. He shouldn't have felt a chill run through his body, but one did, straight from his feet to his head, leaving him momentarily breathless.

Apparently Joey had been locked in the Freezer sooner than he thought, and Thomas knew he needed to get off of the roof immediately. A miniscule amount of remorse for what he was about to do was immediately squashed when he considered who he was living with. This wasn't life, this wasn't humanity; these boys were the dregs of society, and so what if someone got hurt if it meant that his brother was safe.

As one of the Ferrets approached the tar bucket again, Thomas shimmered incandescently for the briefest of moments, and then the bucket cracked impressively. It creaked ominously for a millisecond before exploding apart and releasing the boiling tar inside. He jumped backwards out of the way along with the other three boys who were working, but the original Ferret wasn't so lucky. The entire left side of his body was covered in the burning substance, and hideous screams of absolute torment issued from his burning throat.

Thomas immediately fainted from the gruesome sight and his role in its creation, and in his head he heard the crashing of waves and the screaming of two boys. There was something there, some key to… but then it was gone, and he opened up his eyes to see the Mother herself come bursting out of the stairwell that led to the roof.

"No, no no! Nicolai! You were so beautiful! What have you done?" the Mother was shocked at the injury to one of her favorite orphans, and immediately broke out a cell-phone. She dialed the police as the Ferret was still sobbing in pain, and the others simply looked on in shock. Before she was connected the Mother quickly turned to the remaining boys.

"Go to your rooms immediately. Never speak of this again. Ever." Frankly, Thomas didn't care what issues the police or anyone else would have with orphans working on the roof; all he cared about was that the Mother was the only one to have a key to the freezer, and with the coldness creeping through his body, he knew Joey was in trouble if she didn't remember he was in there. He tried to say something, but she backhanded him across the face when he opened his mouth.

He hurriedly descended the stairwell, and ran as fast as he ever had to his boarding room. Upon entering it he climbed up into his metal bunk bed, pulled a sheet over his head, and abruptly slowed his breathing. If anyone had been watching, and understood what was happening, they would have seen a type of brotherly magic found in identical twins of the magical world. A glowing red light emerged from the veins of Thomas, pulsing with every one of his heartbeats.

The temperature in the room dipped a few degrees as the heat was pulled from the room and placed into Thomas' body. He wasn't using it however; he was transferring it to his brother, using his heart.

Every time one of them was locked in the freezer, the other did this. He didn't know what it was, but somehow he managed to transfer the heat from himself and his surroundings to his brother. Tears dripped down his cheek, the daily reminder of the hellhole his life was impossible to forget.

This time, however, Joey wasn't taken out after ten minutes. He wasn't even removed after thirty, and Thomas began getting deathly scared, and shaking from exhaustion. He couldn't move, or he'd break his concentration and Joey wouldn't be able to stay warm.

Tears began falling more slowly down his face, and Thomas felt like he couldn't hold on much longer. He could hear the other children muttering, and even he felt the temperature in the room dropping to ice cold levels. His tearducts froze, and the wet trails on his face turned to ice as he funneled more and more energy away from him to his brother, adding his own body warmth at this point.

He came to the mournful conclusion that there wasn't enough left in his room. Just as he was about to break the link and run to find help, to find anyone, he felt a gentle push against his warmth before he collapsed, shaking with the effort put in over the last forty minutes.

Ten minutes later, Joey walked through the doorway of the sleeping quarters, and the boys inside it stared as he walked by. He came over to Thomas' bed and hopped on up, sitting silently next to Thomas.

Understanding only like twins ever do, Thomas reached over and enveloped Joey into a brotherly hug, one full of love and understanding. The two boys held onto each other for a minute as if their grasp was the most important thing in the world.

"I didn't think I was gonna make it."

"That's what brother's are for. I'll always be by your side. No matter what."

Silence again enveloped the boys, before tears began dripping down the side of Joey's face. "Who are we Tom? What did we do to deserve this?"

"We're brothers. Other than that? I don't know." He didn't have an answer to his brother's questions. No point in voicing what they already knew.

Joey looked up after a moment and met his twin brother's eyes with a steely gaze.

"We're leaving tonight," he whispered before placing something heavy and metallic in his brother's hands.

Thomas opened up his hand, and reveled in the warmth that rushed through his body. He held a key in his hand. And not just any key, but the main key that opened up the main door to the Orphanage.

– – – – –

"Wake up," whispered Joey.

Warm breath stirred the frosty air, and his brother's blue eyes popped open twelve beds down.

Joey had spent five hours with muscles twitching, resolutely quiet, too hopped up on adrenaline to sleep. The Mother's idea was every child could and should be broken, and he wasn't sticking around to be broken. Life beckoned beyond the confines of the Orphanage, and he planned to find out what lay beyond.

Tom thought three words as he woke up. Fuck this place.

He removed his covers and Joey did likewise, both twins already dressed. They silently climbed down their bunk beds, shoes held in their hands. Their bare feet steamed as they impacted the ground, leaving behind only brief infrared footsteps as they scampered across the cold stone floor.

With nary a glance back they exited their sleeping quarters for the last time, whispers from a few light sleeping orphans echoing in their wake.

Down the hallway, left to the staircase, avoiding the third, fifth and ninth steps, and then the imposing front door loomed in front of the boys. They took a few seconds to slip their shoes on, and Tom produced the key Joey had filched from the Mother last night coming back from the Freezer.

The clicks a proper key make unlocking a lock sounded glorious to Joey's ears as the door opened. Just enough to slip though, and they were out, twin shadows blending into the night as the threshold to their only memory shut soundly.

Two brilliant jets of purple light arched from the cobblestones on either side of the orphanage door, straight up and then arching towards one other. The bright lasers of light smashed together and vanished from existence.

The purple flash from behind illuminated the buildings around the twins as their footfalls fell on the street cobblestones, legs pumping furiously as they sought to put distance between themselves and the orphanage.

"That means they know," said Tom.

"Let's run faster then," replied Joey.

"Only question is, can you keep up?" said Tom with a smirk on his face, before putting pedal to metal and pounding the pavement, leaving his twin behind.

"Hey!" shouted Joey from behind, and the chase was on, running up the side street with looming buildings on all sides, as if leaning forwards to watch the kids run down the streets they lived on.

Like a blur the twins spilled into an even larger street, then to another that branched off diagonally from the second, Tom still steps ahead laughing as the wind tossed about his blonde hair.

He darted in a narrow alleyway, bouncing off the building walls, before the street funneled to an intersection. Picking the downward sloping side, he curved left, running wildly down, past shops, and residences, and then finally a small park, it's trees and green grass breaking up the monotony of civilization just enough to pique his interest.

Tom paused for just a moment, admiring the greenery, until his brother turned round the corner behind him, and he was off like a rabbit, bounding away with enthusiasm.

"Tom! Stop! Come on, I'm not kidding, stop!" Tom slowed to a stop and Joey finally caught up, both brothers breathing hard.

"We gotta slow down. Can't burn all our energy, have to pace ourselves."

"Okay, what's the plan?"

"The plan is, you should do pushups like I do every morning, and turn those scrawny little arms," said Joey emphatically, before an ear to ear smile broke out across his face. His brother cocked his head to the side, pondering the smile.

"Into guns like these". Joey flexed his arm muscles, stuck his tongue out, and then threw his body at Tom, hands cocked to one side, then propelled forward in a closefisted punch, bowling Tom backwards onto his ass three feet away. Joey bolted, running as fast as he could away from Tom, his brother eating dust in his wake.

"Oh, you cheater! You are unbelievable!" shouted Tom as he got back to his feet, breaking into a sprint.

Joey turned his head around while sprinting, yelling "Completely believable!"

Five minutes later the twins were scampering side by side over a bridge from one part of Rome to the next, crossing a river they didn't know, majestic towering buildings stretching into the darkness until they became part of it themselves.

Joey paused at the highest point, leaning onto the edge with his elbows splayed out, gazing down at the rushing water below.

The smells were so vibrant compared to the orphanage, thought Joey as he inhaled, savoring the myriad odors of the city, imprinting Rome at night firmly in his memory.

"Joey, where are we going?"

"North, I think."

"I meant our destination."

"Somewhere we can eat, I suppose. A market, or a square. Find a safe place to sleep nearby."

"What if we can't find a good one?" voiced Tom tentatively.

Joey looked at his twin brother, and saw just a small look of discomfort in his eyes. Now that they were out in the real world, truly on their own, he supposed his brother was feeling the slight panic of the unknown, their untethered future.

"It's the journey that's special, Tom. Who cares where we end up? Anywhere in the world's better than where we just came from, and whatever we get into, we'll do it together."

Joey thought for a moment, then added, "We're explorers now, so lets go explore the city."

Tom nodded in acquiescence, his shoulders relaxing, and the twins continued their trek, down the other side of the bridge and into a new section of Rome. Here they occasionally saw small children and the rare adult pass by, but none spared the Duncan's any thought.

They were content to wander about, pausing ever so often to take in a brand new sight, such as a nightclub that reared out from nowhere, with its patrons, lights, movers and shakers, and a hefty contingent of smokers standing outside.

Catching the twins gawking at the rapid fire conversation, a few men flicked their lit cigarette butts the boys' way, and so Joey and Tom moved on, the night-life sounds fading into the background until only muffled rumbles remained. Those too vanished, and the street they were walking on suddenly widened out, emerging upon a small square.

"Would you look at that," said Tom in amazement, and Fred could only nod his head in agreement.

One side of the square was the side of a cathedral. It's many levels were separated by vertical columns with windows between them, with biblical carvings adorning every surface and every column, the facade an amalgamation of patron saints, angels, and disciples.

Carved into the side of the cathedral at street level were triptych compartments, and the figures inside were a sight to behold. He didn't know who they were, of course, but there must have been twenty of them, and Joey could feel the people inside the carvings. As if they were trapped, just waiting for a spark of magic to come by and wake them up.

He ran his hands over the folds of a bearded man's clothing, draping so lifelike around his shoulders and bunching like cloth, yet it was only cold, hard stone underneath his fingertips.

He walked from one end of the square to the other, taking his time, gazing at each carving. Minutes of silence spent gazing at magnificent statues, emotions etched into their faces.

"I never knew stone could look..."

"Like us?" finished Tom, gazing in duo with his brother at a carving of a warrior in armor, helm adorning his head, sword unsheathed and ready for battle.

"Yeah," said Joey, too awestruck for anything more.

"It looks alive," said Tom, running his hands over the folds in the warrior's cloak. His fingers trailed over the point of the sword, looking quizzically at it, thoughts tumbling about his head.

"We need weapons," he said finally.

Joey snorted with laughter, but the condescending look his brother shot him sobered him up enough to retort. "Come on Tom, that's ridiculous. Two kids wandering about, no parents around, with swords on their backs?"

Tom glared at him while he succumbed to a new wave of chuckles.

"We need protection."

"Against who? We're not a threat."

"That purple light says otherwise. Someone thinks we're important enough for whatever that was."

"Would you relax, Tom? I get it, the light had something to do with us leaving the orphanage. Stop being such a killjoy, we're over a k away already" said Joey, turning away from the statue and walking towards the end of the square.

Looking back he saw his brother still in contemplative thought. "Are you coming or what?" he yelled at his brother's back. "Move if you're so concerned!"

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!" said Tom, jogging until he was by his brother's side.

"We've got a ways to go, let's keep at it."

The morning that dawned after the Duncan twins trekked halfway across Rome was resplendent.

Bluebird skies arose from the darkness, and the colors emerging from the eastern sun were magnificent. The shadowy buildings that had stood watch as the twins traipsed past revealed their colors, and the sounds of the city awakening carried on the wind.

They had their freedom, and nothing could taste sweater. Sure, he was yawning now and then, having been up all night, but they'd had an adventure!

Sure enough, they'd found their market square little under a half hour ago. Tom and Joey were perched on two barrels, watching the busy hustle and bustle of goods traversing the square, and shopkeepers setting up for the days horde. Bicycles loaded with goods careened around carts piled high, and as far as he could see, jewelry, wine, food, weapons, glass art, paintings, everything he could imagine was on display somewhere.

Minutes later the crowd seemed to swell, and where just before there was meters of space around a single individual, now they were constantly bumping into each other. Tom and Joey had their eyes peeled in the crowd, hoping to be the first to spot what they were looking for.

Tom saw him first, nudging his brother and pointing quickly at the runt-sized kid maneuvering through the crowd. Sure enough, he slowed down in front of them, fingers traveling up the cloak of a well dressed gentleman. A nimble flick of the wrist, and Joey saw a billfold disappear into the runt's pockets.

"Let's go," said Tom, and both boys hopped off their barrels, intent on learning the sleight of hand necessary to steal what they'd need to survive on the streets.

– – – – –

"Minister?"

One of his secretaries' voice emerged from his private channel on the Ministry comm box. Minister Buigardini was busy shuffling through his annual internal Ministry reports on government corruption and he welcomed the brief respite, setting down the paperwork and responding.

"Yes?"

"There's an Anthony Pedrazinni to see you. He says it is most urgent."

Ludovico's eyes narrowed angrily, pondering why one of the warders he contracted was at his door, when he specifically told them never to reveal their relationship in public.

"Send him in," said Ludovico gruffly.

When Pedrazinni had closed the door behind him, and Ludovico felt the security enchantments lock in place, he felt safe to talk.

"What the fuck are you doing here."

"Minister, I..."

"I told you never to contact me here."

"That you did, Minister, but, as I told your secretary..."

"Another mistake. The whole Ministry will know by noon I was visited by a stranger, with urgent business, which can only mean you're not a stranger, which means I'm engaging in covert and clandestine activity, which shifts the balance of power away from my favor, however minutely."

Ludovico glared at the young warder, thoroughly depressed at the state of Italy's magical youth. No guile or cunning left in the whole goddamn country it seemed. "And you gave my secretary your actual name. Are you an amateur, or just incompetent?" he asked.

It wasn't often he was dressed down in such a manner. "Neither, sir. The ward you asked me to put up fell last night," said Anthony stiffly.

"The trust I had in you fell this morning..." Ludovico abruptly paused, registering the warder's words. "Which ward?"

"The one on the fucking orphanage," said Anthony.

Ludovico's eyes snapped into focus, his gaze sharpening. "Well, why didn't you say so earlier?"

Pedrazinni breathed out an exasperated sigh, but he couldn't very well chastise the Minister himself.

"What was the exact time?"

"3:02 am, the ward went off and I was informed a minute later at 3:03 when the message was delivered to me."

"And why didn't you inform me immediately?"

Anthony Pedrazinni's eyes flickered down to the floor, and he stammered for a moment, obviously thinking up a lie to cover the truth.

When the man finally raised his eyes, he sent a subtle barb of legilimency at Pedrazinni, quickly mining the man's thoughts and finding what he needed to know swimming vividly on the surface.

"I can guess the truth. You had a buxom witch hopped up on Amorentia, tits flopping about, thrusting away like a horse in heat, and you didn't want to waste the potion."

Minister Buigardini's laser sharp gaze zeroed in on Pedrazinni's eyes, and dared him to deny it.

A blush crept up the warder's face, but his mouth stayed shut, silently acquiescing to the truth of the matter.

"Instead, you decided inconveniencing the Minister of Magic was a better idea, yes?"

Wisely, Pedrazinni continued staying quiet. Nothing could be gained by speaking.

"You've enough common sense to know when to shut the fuck up, at least. Let's get this over with," said Buigardini condescendingly, before rising from behind his desk. He withdrew a scroll from his jacket, bound up in silver cord which he unraveled, unrolling the parchment.

Anthony grabbed a pen from Ludovico's desk, reading through the document carefully in case it'd been swapped. It hadn't, and the magical contract hadn't been disturbed in any way he could see.

He signed his name under services rendered, releasing the contract's magic. He was promptly obliviated of any recollection of the service he'd been required to do.

Ludovico waited for the magical light from the obliviation to subside. After it did, Anthony gazed around the office, blinking his eyes rapidly, then visibly jumping when his eyes fell on the Minister himself.

"Minister! What am I doing here?"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing here?"

It was a painful few seconds watching Pedrazinni work it out. "Must've done a job for you. Can you tell me about it? I can't remember anything."

"Sweet Merlin, man, it was an obliviation contract! Fuck no I won't just tell you! Your second payment has already been transferred to your account. The door's behind you," he finished with a voice cut from stone.

Anthony Pedrazinni nodded in understanding, recognizing his dismissal, and moved quickly out of the Office of the Minister. The door shut behind him, and Ludovico pressed down his private comm line to his secretary.

"Cecilia?"

"Yes Minister?"

"I'm leaving the office. Cancel and move today's appointments, and inform any callers I was called away on business."

"Yes, Minister. Anything else I can do for you?"

"Stop gossiping so fucking much, it's one of the seven deadly sins," he said tartly before canceling the call, and throwing a pinch of floo powder into his personal fireplace. "The nerve of some people," he muttered to himself before stepping into the robust green flames.

"Medichi Manor!" he shouted, vanishing down into the floo network.

Upon emerging in the opulent living room the Medichi's kept, he brushed the soot off his clothes, and cast the point me spell after stepping out of the fireplace. He followed it upstairs, walking up the left grand staircase and past wizarding portraits of all the famous Medichi witches and wizards, who all greeted him with respectful acknowledgment.

The spell pointed at the famous bath chamber the family kept, and Ludovico barged right in to the impressive bath chamber filled with columns, waterfalls, and paintings protected from the humidity by magical enchantment.

From the sounds of pleasure echoing around the chamber, his friend Augustus was currently tending to his wife's needs, and as he stepped through the haze, Ludovico could see Augustus being ridden heartily by his wife. Persephone was facing him, her boobs jiggling with every thrust, head tilted back and eyes closed, mouth agape and breathing heavily. She was a beautiful woman, and Ludovico found himself admiring the curves she possessed as she fucked his best friend. Ironically enough, the exact same position he'd gleaned from Anthony Pedrazinni's mind. What a nice set of coincidences, he thought to himself.

When Persephone Medichi finally opened her eyes and saw him standing there like a voyeur, she shrieked loudly, plunging backwards into the water with a splash, causing Augustus Medichi to turn around rapidly.

"Those are quiet lovely," he said with a leer.

"Minister!" she shouted in indignation, covering her bare breasts with her hands.

"What the fuck are you doing Ludo!"

"Admiring your pretty wife."

"Well, stop! She's my wife, not yours!"

"Gus, when you've decided that being the Minister's first confidant is beneath you, then and only then will I give a fuck."

"I hate you," replied Augustus wearily, arms slapping down on the water in resignation.

"And that's why I love you. I could never stand other mens flattery," said Ludovico, before raking his eyes over what parts of Persephone Medichi remained above water. The cold eyes staring back at him would've frightened any other man, but he was not just any man.

"It's a pleasure to see you, Persephone."

"Go fuck yourself," she responded, her barest wits restored.

"With pleasure," he said with a bright white smile. "Gus, get dressed. I was just informed by the idiot we hired to ward the orphanage that the boys are gone as of three am today. I need the blood samples we took the day we Obliviated them for tracking charms. Meet me downstairs in the foyer when you're ready, and be sharp about it."

"He's staying here, Minister. Right now his duty is to his wife," said Persephone coldly, rapidly losing the sex flush on her cheeks.

"No, his duty is to his country. He can fuck you anytime," said Ludovico before turning around and leaving Augustus' fuming wife cursing his very existence.

– – – – –

It quickly became apparent that while they could tail and observe the pickpockets working throughout the crowd, emulating them was an entirely different matter.

Joey was sporting a black eye from an earlier attempt at lifting a wallet from an unsuspecting man who hadn't been so unsuspecting, and Tom had twisted his arm a little to worm out of the grasp of a target. Otherwise they were uninjured, even if Joey's pride was sporting at his unsuccessful run.

Tailing the many pickpockets in the crowd had quickly taught him a few lessons in the art. Bumping into a target on purpose caused a second's confusion that occasionally produced a quick pocket watch. Stealing worked best when the target was busy rummaging through wares, or examining a trinket he wished to purchase. That momentary distraction seemed key to success, and Joey saw many a small runt getting richer as the day wore past noon.

It was their latest target, however, who was providing the most beneficial information, a small teenager with the deftest of hands, and skill at appearing to be exactly who he wasn't.

He had two small knives hidden up his sleeves, and swayed through the crowd like a cool breeze, swirling through the crowd of people like water, always finding the path of least resistance to ensure his passing wasn't noticed. With a quick flick of his hand, the knives he carried cut through pouches, opened up seams and pockets, and like a breeze he was gone, wallets and coins, cash and even documents disappearing into the many pockets of his coat.

Interestingly enough, he only seemed to target men. The ladies he encountered seemed to know him, and their pats on the head were accompanied by small handouts of coins, almost like a toll for him not stealing from them. Joey could see why; they were decked out in gorgeous clothes, with gold and silver chains dangling from their necks, watches from their wrists, sparkling diamonds in their ears, and hands adorned with jewels of all colors.

Each time he encountered the ladies, they stopped and listened to what he had to say, and creeping closer, as much as they could without revealing themselves, the twins could pick up on the odd snippets of conversation.

The boy knew where all the best deals in the market were, and took great joy in squeezing out more coins for the more selective information, from where the freshest food was, to whom was buying what, names flying into their inquisitive ears, and coins accompanying each new nugget of substance.

Once a man dressed in black silk cloth had come up to the boy, dropped a golden chain in his hand, and listened intently to what he had to say.

Joey hadn't known that information was so valuable, but right here was on display the evidence. Not only did this boy steal what he wanted, he gathered conversation like a sponge, ready to release it when the highest bidder came around to converse. Both produced the same result, though the latter seemed to be the much safer alternative.

As the ladies moved on, their gossiping voices melding with the rest of the crowd, the boy suddenly whipped around, his green eyes staring directly into Joey's, an iron gaze with only the slightest crease of curiosity on it. It traveled to Tom's face, recognizing instantly that the two were twins, and then he was gone, threading through the crowd with aplomb and vanishing.

Joey cursed in frustration. He'd been careless, and now the best teacher they'd watched had caught on, disappearing along with the wealth of his information. Gazing up at the noon sun directly overhead, he wiped his brow of sweat, and got his brother's attention.

"Time to put our skills to use," he said, and they headed over to the south end of the market square, were all the food was.

Stalls after stalls of fresh pasta, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, everything looked delicious, but guarded over jealously by the shop owners.

Joey wormed his way from stand to stand, until finally he caught a stall owner turning away from his produce to yell at his neighbor. Quickly, and without hesitation, Joey grabbed two tomatoes and vanished.

When no outcry was heard, he knew he saw safe, and tossed one to his brother, crunching through the skin to the inside, juice flowing down the sides of his chin.

"Your turn," he said to Tom after swallowing the last bite, and off his brother went, Joey not far behind.

He watched his brother sneakily move around the shops, head on a swivel and eyes glancing every which way. When he saw his brother make his move, Joey could only silently applaud.

He chose a bakery stall, set up in front of a bakery built into surrounding buildings itself, with fresh bread being moved from the inside out to the square stall setup. Unnoticed, Tom slipped into the area between the two, and Joey moved closer, seeming to examine the bread on display, the seller warily keeping his eyes on him

Joey moved from the left side of the stall to the right, distracting the shopkeeper, getting closer to Tom,who was leaning on the side of the building, looking bored and uninterested.

When the shop door swung open and a man emerged with a whole basket of bread, Tom exploded, running at the portly man and hitting his legs with a tackle. The basket went flying, the bread landing on the ground, and Joey ran from the stall corner to Tom, swooping up two loaves of bread while his brother grabbed three.

They ran as if their lives depended on it, through a vegebtable stall bordering the bread one, and straight back into the crowd.

Shouts followed in their wake, but those dimmed the further they ran. Skirts hit their faces as they ran under the surface of the crowd, lost in a sea of cloth.

"Mark 2!" Tom shouted at Joey, and then he veered off away from his brother.

Joey swerved in the other direction, lessening the chance they'd get caught.

Mark 2 was one of their three meeting points outside the square. In the morning, they'd been watching the pickpockets work, and the first time one had got a huge score, he booked it as fast as a jackrabbit out of the square, running as small as he could trying not to draw attention to himself. It looked like it was a delicate art. The four times they'd seen the phenomena happen but they'd watched as that particular pickpocket climbed a barrel, jumped to a hanging sign from a shop, hurled himself upwards to grab the beginning of the roof, and then swung his legs up and climbed up, vanishing from view.

After watching this occur a few times, the Duncan twins had decided to find a few places of their own where they could meet back at after they successfully stole something

Mark 2 was in an alleyway that branched off from the square. There were a few climbing handholds that led up to a balcony, and they'd checked to make sure the place was unoccupied before deciding on using it.

Joey tucked the two loaves of bread underneath his arm, and used his legs mostly to push himself up the side of the alley. Looking upwards, he was his brother's head peek over the edge, and then his arm snaked over, grabbing the two loaves of bread from under his arm so Joey could finish climbing the rest of the way. Rolling over the edge, Joey landed on the balcony, and plopped himself down in one of the chairs.

He grabbed a loaf from the table, and bit into it, the warm savory smell intoxicating his senses, his belly grumbling that it wanted warm bread and it wanted it now.

Contentedly he tore into the loaf, munching away. "Could use some honey," he said to Tom, mouth full.

With a wicked grin, Tom pulled a jar of small honey from his pocket and held it in his hands, teasing Joey.

"You can have some, if you admit I'm better at this than you are."

Joey contemplated throwing himself at his brother, and then thought better. Truthfully, he hadn't even seen his brother steal the honey.

"I'll only admit to that, if you agree to be the point man on something I've cooked up."

"Deal," said Tom with a smile on his face, jiggling the honey jar in his hand.

"Fine, you're a better thief than I am," said Joey, catching the honey jar thrown his way, and slathering on a liberal layer of the sweet nectar. He leaned back in his chair, the front legs lifting as he propped his legs up on the table. Closing his eyes he bit into the bread now, moaning in pleasure as it crunched.

"I'm a better thief than both of you."

Joey's eyes shot open and his legs jolted in surprised. He succeeding only in destroying his balance, and crashed backwards as the chair fell, his feet rolling over his head, bread rolling on the ground.

Tom gave a small strangled yelp, as he hadn't seen the boy who'd climbed up to their safe spot, and perched on the ledge in a cat like pose.

The boy had green eyes, and he smiled as he surveyed the twins, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand, wisps of cigarette smoke trailing up in the air in lazy spirals.

Joey looked at him, and realized immediately he was staring at the green eyed boy they'd followed through the crowd.

"Hey, you're that thief!" he said, getting up and righting his chair, plopping right back down in it as nonchalantly as possible.

"Yes, I am," said the boy, gazing at Joey intently. "The one you were following. Nice shiner," he said, pointing to the black eye.

"You learn fast," he said, before hopping down off the ledge onto the balcony. "Of course, that's mostly cuz you followed me, and I'm one of the best."

"Rory Mockos is the name," he said, offering his hand to the Duncan twins to shake.

"Joey Duncan."

"Tom Duncan."

"Good to meet you lads," Rory said before sitting down in the final chair, and pulling a quarter of a sandwich from his pocket. He took a final drag off his cigarette, and put it out on the table. "So what's your story? Where you from?"

Tom looked at Joey with a questioning gaze, a silent inquiry debating trust passing between the two.

"We're not sure, actually," said Joey.

"You're not sure?" said Rory incredulously.

"Our memories are only good for the last month," said Joey.

"Can't remember shit before that," added Tom with a sigh.

"Memory loss?" asked Rory. "Haven't heard that one before. Sure you're not pulling one over my eyes?"

"Honest, Rory," said Joey.

"And the last month you were where?"

"A fucking Orphanage," spat out Tom.

"Ahhh, makes sense. When you get out?"

"This morning," said Joey with a bit of pride in his voice.

Rory managed to conceal the impressed look that almost passed over his face, throwing the last bit of sandwich in his mouth to cover his facial twitch. He swallowed it down, and pulled another cigarette from his pack to light. He then pulled out two more after thinking about it, and the flask from his pocket full of a nice whiskey.

"You ever had these?"

Both boys shook their head negatively.

"There's never a bad day to start, I always say. Let's celebrate, yeah? To you're new found freedom?" he said, holding out two cigarettes to the boys, who grabbed them.

"Alright, smoking is about doing it right, you look cool, okay? You hold it like this, and you light it like this," he said, holding the cigarette between his lips, cupping the hand holding the lighter inside the other, flicking the flint to light the butane and inhaling.

He held it in for a second, and then exhaled out his mouth, blowing a smoke ring out and then a stream of smoke through it.

"First things first, have a drink of this. Wet your throat before your first cig" he said, passing the flask to Joey.

The swig he took burned, but in a good way, and he swallowed it quickly, exhaling the fumes that entered his belly in the next breath. His eyes watered a bit, but that was it, and he passed the booze over to Tom.

Tom got his gulp down, but ended up coughing at the end, sending Joey into a fit of giggles.

"You're the better thief, I'm the better drinker. I'll take that trade any day."

"Not where you're going, you won't," said Rory pointedly, grabbing back the flask from Tom and screwing the cap back on. "Alright, when you breathe in the smoke, do a small hit first, and then pull away and keep inhaling regular air. That way the smoke won't be too rough."

He tossed the lighter to Tom, who lit his cigarette and took a drag before tossing Joey the lighter, who did the same, carefully only inhaling a small amount of smoke. He exhaled, and managed to suppress the cough that threatened to break his composure.

"So, you two learned everything you know about pickpocketing, today?"

"Yup," said Tom proudly, taking a bite out of his honeyed bread and munching on it, the cigarette held in his hand.

"First day out in the real world," said Joey.

Rory gazed appraisingly at the two.

"That settles it then. If you can do that in half a day, Cheerio'll love you guys. So will the ladies, I reckon" he said with a sense of finality before standing up off the seat.

"You guys got any plans? Found any place to stay the night?"

Their facial expressions confirmed his thoughts. "Want to learn how to really be a thief? Have a roof over your heads, with fresh food, and fresh water? Learn more about the underground of Rome than most anyone?"

"Sounds like an adventure to me," said Tom with a smile on his face.

"I'm in," said Joey, taking another hit off his cigarette. He had a contented feeling creeping through his entire body, the combination of a chaotic plan coming to fruition, and the nicotine coursing through his veins for the first time in his life.

"Alright. First things first. You have to decide, right here, right now, if you can follow orders. If you can, you're in. If not, you won't work out, because the thieves I run around with have a guild. There's a leadership ladder, from the tippity top all the way to the bottom, and you'll be right at the bottom boys."

"I'm cool with that," said Joey, with Tom echoing the sentiment.

"I'm a Lieutenant in the Bang-up Boys. Top of us is Cheerio, that's who I answer to, and that's who I'm taking you to meet," he said, flicking his cigarette on the ground impressively. Both Duncan boys took another drag, then threw theirs as well, following Rory up and over the balcony and back down to the street.

Only three blocks west, Rory knocked on a nondescript wooden street level door.

A slab in the door opened at eye level, the screech of metal hinges audible.

"Grapes for eyes," said Rory.

Seconds later the door opened, and all three slipped inside.

"Quickly now," said Rory, taking an immediate left turn, opening the coat closet and sliding inside, quietly shutting the door behind and heading to the back, past exotic fur coast and sleek leather jackets. Rory touched none of it, sliding a brown patterned rug to the side and revealing an iron hinged door. Inscribed in the middle was a triangle, with a face engraved inside. One eye was closed, all curved eyelashes, the other open and bright purple.

Rory grabbed the iron handle and pulled upwards, opening the door and revealing steps down into the darkness.

Joey could hardly contain the adrenaline in his body as he stepped down the stairs, Tom behind him, nor the thrill of excitement as Rory closed the door above their heads. The steps were made of wood and ten feet down he landed on stone.

Rory showed them the torches behind the staircase, and lit three up, thrusting them into Tom and Joey's hands.

"Follow me and keep up," he said, and then they were off.

They passed under arches, down an old Roman street, before veering into a tunnel where the roof was always overhead, looming as they ran down the path.

Twice they descended ladders into other pathways and twice they ascended them, twisting little passageways where the brick over their heads was crumbling away. The material over their heads changed from stone to wood buttresses to brick and back again, as did the surrounding dwellings before they emerged into another small cavern, this one equipped with electricity, a single light bulb shining, with another faintly seen down round the corner.

They deposited their torches amongst the others after dousing them. Joey saw a lone ladder ascending on the other side of a circle of couches, and peering closely, he could see it end at another door.

"What's that door for?" he inquired curiously.

"It's a Skydoor. Same as we used back there. We use em to get back aground, or to travel where we don't want eyes to see us. It wouldn't do for me to take you straight to the Guild home, on the street, and let everyone get a good hard look at ya."

They set off traveling along the string of light bulbs, down a semicircular curving tract and subsequent straightaway, before the lights jutted out into a street. It resembled the ones on the surface somewhat, but much more enclosed, and sloping upwards at a semi-steep angle. It curved left and right, and then Rory stopped at a door on the street level. Joey looked past where they'd stopped, and was slightly disoriented when he saw the street vanish twenty feet away into the ceiling.

Rory pounded on the door heavily four times in a row, paused then twice more. Ten long seconds of silence later, another hatch slid open.

"Georgio, it's me, Rory, open the fuck up."

"What's the password?"

"Fuck your mother," said Rory, lifting his middle finger to the eyes behind the door.

Locks unengaged, and deadbolts were retracted, then the door swung open.

"Who these kids man?"

"New recruits," said Rory, looking back at Tom and Joey. "Come on now, no time to dawdle."

They emerged into a great hall, with ceilings ten meters tall, and columns spaced evenly the length of the room, paintings hung between them. From a quick glance, most had a motif of darkness and light, though he could see a few modern pieces as well dotting the walls, featuring the exploits of a thief.

A twenty meter table stretched down the center of the hall, and on it was piled the beginnings of dinner. A few kids wearing funny aprons were running between the hall and the adjacent room. From the smells that assaulted his senses, that room was the kitchen.

"Your noses are smelling our kitchen, and this here is the main dining room. Named after the boy in charge, right now it's Cheerio's Hall. We're about twenty meters below street level, and no one up there knows we're down here."

Rory grabbed a chicken leg off the table and bit into it.

He waved it around as he was talking. "Eventually you'll start noticing stuff just doesn't look right in this city. All the spaces between buildings that don't seem to fit right? Rooms you can't get into? Streets and alleyways where you can descend underneath it all, and traverse hidden passageways? We live in the world of ropes and ladders, secret passages and booby traps, and this, right here, is the heart of it all for us. The home base of our glorious territory."

"We've built six chutes just in the last year from ground level down to passageways. If you know the secrets, and can memorize the maps, you won't have to fear anyone. Provided your little legs can run fast enough to get away," Rory said, letting out a hearty laugh.

"It all leads back to here. And from here, you can go anywhere."

"What's your favorite passage?" asked Tom innocently.

"Giovanni's," replied Rory immediately. "Its a near vertical shaft you have to use climbing equipment to scale. But it lets us go from twenty meters below street level, to twenty five meters above, and provides a great lookout."

Rory tossed the bare chicken leg bone back on the table, and pointed at the stairs that arose from the dining floor to one floor up. "That's where we sleep every night, and where the washrooms are. There's rooms that sleep twenty, and a porch that sleeps thirty."

He motioned for them to follows, and took off for a hallway that widened into another room. There were boys playing darts, gathered at two poker tables, and a few games of pool being shot on the three tables. A jukebox in the corner held a bunch of CDs inside, and was currently playing "Guns of Brixton" by The Clash. Two TVs were hooked up to the walls, and there was a boy not much older than them serving drinks out of crystal decanters behind a bar.

A few boys shouted out hellos to Rory and he nodded his head in recognition, but strode to the left of the room, and a large wooden door.

A larger boy stood guard at the door.

"Got newcomers for Cheerio to check out."

The guard pounded twice on the door.

It opened up, and they stepped through into a plush room. The floor was plush purple carpet, dotted with two tables, maps, and a huge desk, behind which sat Cheerio. The sandy blonde haired boy was probably eighteen years old, wearing a simple black shirt rolled up to his elbows.

"I haven't got much time Rory, lots of accounting to do tonight."

"I'll make it quick then. Saw these two brothers staking me out today, copying my moves, and they picked it up pretty quick. Ran away from an orphanage last night, figured it out organically in about half a day. I think they'll fit right in."

Cheerio gazed at the Duncan boys, and Joey felt himself being measured and judged.

"Names?"

"Tom and Joey Duncan."

"Listen closely, boys. There's about forty members of the Bang-up Boys, give or take a few stupid ones. Now there's about forty two members of the Bang-up Boys, give or take a few stupid ones. Let's not join the stupid ones, okay? No robbing pigs for the fun of it, yeah?"

The twins nodded together, too intimidated to speak.

"Good. Get them some fresh clothes and a shower. Tell Charles he's got your route for the next week, you sponsored them, you'll be the one training them."

"Yes, sir," said Rory, turning around and gesturing at the boys to leave. They had almost reached the door when Cheerio spoke again.

"One more thing. After they're cleaned up, sit em down at the tables. Teach em a few games, introduce em to the boys, have some fun. Lord knows they won't have had any at that Orphanage."

"Sounds good," he said, and ushered the twins out. Joey felt a smile creep over his face as he exited the room. Not even thirty seconds after meeting him, that kid knew exactly what the last month of his life had been like. That was a pleasant surprise amidst what had been an entire day full of them. Looking over at his brother he saw an identical smile playing out, and reveled in the feelings rushing through his heart.

"Alright, come this way, I'll show you how we tapped into one of the under ground water mains for fresh water, " said Rory, leading the twins back to the hall and up the stairs leading to the bedrooms and washrooms. The creaks his footsteps made up the wooden steps felt oddly comforting.

"Hey, when do we get weapons?" asked Tom suddenly.

Ferocious laughter burst from Joeys throat, bubbling up more than he could ever remember.

As he giggled away with merriment, for the first time in his memory Joey felt like he had found a home.

– – – – –

Black leather boots struck the stone balcony floor until they came to a rest.

Matching black robes lowered and settled on the ground as gloved hands reached down and picked up the last of three cigarette butts.

The robes swirled around a black and blue pinstripe three piece suit as Ludovico stood up, his temperature carefully modulated with a seventy two degree cooling charm.

Augustus Medichi finished casting his muggle repelling and eavesdropping charms, and then turned his attention to enchanting the magical net he'd created. The hair of a vampire woven together into a fine net of moonstones after exposure to the blood samples of the two dual-core wizards provided the magical cache for their enchantment. He levitated it above the table, shaping it into an upside down bowl, and then Ludovico Buigardini took the first cigarette, levitated it, and incinerated it with his wand. The smoke rose to the net covering, and the net flashed dark blue momentarily.

"One negative," noted Augustus.

Ludovico took the second cigarette and as with the first, incinerated it as his partner maintained the blood magic creation. When this smoke rose and hit the net, it turned blood red.

"One positive match," noted Augustus.

The third cigarette produced the same effect, and Augustus waved his wand to dispel the enchantment, gathering the vampire hair net into a small storage vial and putting it into his robes.

"Those are our boys," said Ludovico with conviction. "Question is, who are they with, and where did they go?"

The Minister was collected in contemplation for a few moments. "I'm thinking a ten kilometer square blood ward to be safe, don't you think?"

"They were here today," replied Augustus in counsel, looking at the breadcrumbs still lying on the table. "Chances are they're not far, I think five kilometers should be more than sufficient."

With a nod, the two apparated back to the square.

After perusing the accommodations, they checked into the nicest muggle hotel they could find, The Diorena.

Within minutes they were situated in their modest room, and with a do not disturb sign hanging from the door, set about making it their operations center. Each wizard spent ten minutes casting as many defensive wards as possible, then Augustus set up their foe glasses and magic detectors while Ludovico enchanted an apparation field only they could penetrate around the entire room.

Once finished, Augustus pulled from his bag five pentagram shaped rubies, with location runes carved in the middle of each. He cast a charm he was well familiar with, developed to create perfect ward lines over large distances, and a map with the exact locations popped into his mind. Grabbing the two bottles himself, he gave Ludovico a quick nod. Ludovico keyed him into the apparation ward he'd created, and then Augustus apparated away.

At each location he dropped one drop of blood from each bottle onto the ruby, which sucked up the blood and locked it inside. Burying each ruby took only a few moments, and within minutes he apparated back to the side of his friend, the Minister.

This was the very center of the blood ward, and when the wards activated, they needed a magical human sacrifice to survive its chaotic creation.

Augustus carved the fresh activation and controlling rune into a circular sheet of thing gold, before Ludovico activated a portkey attached to their sacrifice.

The young witch that arrived was from a family in the Italian Wizengamot allied against them. She was shocked, afraid, and momentarily disoriented from the abrupt and unexpected travel.

Augustus needed her conscious for the spell, so he immobilized the young teenager immediately, and then levitated her directly over the controlling rune, upside down. The poor girl's eyes seemed to recognize her fate, swirling madly side to side in her sockets as Ludovico pulled his wand from his pocket.

"Your daddy's been a bad man," he growled in her ear, before wordlessly casting a diamond cutter spell and dragging the wand across her neck. Her white neck exploded in a fountain of blood, gushing down her face and hair onto the activation and controlling rune, fresh rivers of red coating the rune with every gurgling breath the girl tried to take.

Augustus chanted the activation phrase, and felt every runic ruby associate together in a fountain of magic, the gold rune summoning the girl's magic and surging it across the entire five square kilometers he'd mapped out. As it always did the energy rebounded and surged back even faster towards the focal point, hitting all at once. The activation and controlling rune shone bright red and the air cackled with chaotic magic before holding strong and subsiding.

Instantly he had an impression of the two muggleborn, their exact location revealed in his mind.

"I've got them," said Augustus immediately, and Ludovico levitated an active portkey at the dying girl. When it connected with her she vanished, appearing in the sky above the middle of the Mediterranean and plunging into the ocean with a bloody splash.

"Where are they?"

"They're 2 kilometers west of us...and twenty meters below ground," said Augustus.

"They're underneath our feet? Below the city?"

"It appears so," mused Augustus. "What are those rascals doing down there?"

"Whatever it is, we can't apparate underground, even knowing their location. Too risky without knowing what their surroundings look like, and who they're with" said Ludovico, eyes crinkled in thought. This slowed down his plan most assuredly. Oh well, time he had.

"Track em," said Buigardini with a sense of finality, and he watched his confidant pull a large map of Rome out from his bag. A quick enchantment later, and the map only showed the interior of their blood ward. Augustus cast another charm to enlarge the map itself, a robust sticking charm to affix it to the wall, and then after ten seconds of chanting, added a tracking modifier to the location enchantment of the blood ward construct.

His final bit of magic was a conducting charm between the map itself and the blood ward, and a modified coordinate mapping colorant. A red and black dot emerged on the map, pinpointing the location of the Duncan twins underground.

Augustus stepped back and admired his handiwork for a moment.

"This will record every move they make. I'll mess with it later to detect elevation changes," he added as an afterthought.

"Good. Now that this nasty business is finished, don't you have somewhere to be?"

Augustus looked at his friend, and couldn't believe the cavalier expression on his friend's face.

"Well it's not like she'll be in the mood now, you old cretin! Or me! We just murdered a girl!"

"Sacrificed, Gus," said Ludovico. "The word is sacrifice, and I'm the one who did the deed, not you. Don't you dare take credit!" he admonished Medichi, laughing at his own black humor.

"I got the assist," deadpanned Augustus, pointing a finger accusingly at the Minister.

Ludovico laughed with bemused merriment.

"Fine. Have fun fucking yourself," he said for his wife's benefit. He could use the family pensieve if she didn't believe him.

"Damnit, that's what I should've kept the girl for!" yelled Ludovico, painting with a few choice words a canvas of sordid debauchery.

"You are depraved!" bellowed Medichi as he twisted his heels and apparated away, perverse laughter the last sound he heard from their temporary ops center.

– – – – –

Foster the Wizards


End file.
